Joan Hardy scholarship awarded to Geraldine Fela

Geraldine Fela is the 2021 recipient of the Joan Hardy Scholarship for postgraduate nursing research, for her study, which draws on oral testimony and archival research to examine the response of nurses in Australia to the HIV and AIDS virus between 1983 and 1996, 1983 being the first recorded AIDS related death in Australia and 1996 the introduction of effective treatment, Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy (HAART).

Geraldine also works as a research assistant simultaneously holding down four casual jobs across three universities (Monash University, Australian Catholic University and Melbourne University). She is an active NTEU delegate and Branch Committee member at the University of Melbourne. Her research is part of her work towards a PhD through Monash University.

Geraldine has collected oral testimony from twenty-seven nurses representing each state and territory in Australia, rural and urban areas and a variety of clinical settings – wards, clinics and community nursing.

'When I began looking into the 1980s and HIV/AIDS, I noticed a huge gap in the available research and was struck by how little history had been documented from the point of view of nurses,' says Geraldine.

Revisiting this earlier public health crisis is highly relevant in the current pandemic, as both share socioeconomic complexities and no cure in sight. Critical to this study also, is the focus on the distinctive role of nurses who were at the frontline of clinical care, a role that has been neglected in previous histories that have focused on doctors, researchers and patients. Moreover, the urgency of this study is paramount as most of those nurses who were working with HIV/ AIDS patients at the time are nearing retirement.

'In the 1980s', says Geraldine, 'the nursing profession was predominantly female and working class. For many nurses, it was the first time they met someone who was gay. So, they had to deal with their own interpersonal and political dynamics not just with a gay person who was dying but dying of a disease that at that time was highly stigmatised.' There were also a lot of gay men in the profession, they faced a particular challenge as their personal and professional lives collided and they often found themselves caring for their friends and partners.

In her research, Geraldine also highlights the pivotal role the nurses union played at the time in responding to the crisis 'because the union was advocating for a new public health approach that was in opposition to some of the draconian approaches of doctors and other medical experts of the time'. This advocacy was about empowering communities with knowledge about HIV/AIDS how it is contracted, and universal precautions rather than just testing and went a long way to getting rid of the stigma associated with people who were HIV positive and who had AIDS.

At the time, nurses offered amazing support. For example, touch was identified as important to patients especially when the disease was so stigmatised. 'A community nurse I interviewed', says Geraldine, 'decided to learn massage so she could offer relief to patients at home.'

Offering conversation was another way of developing an understanding of what patients were going through. Nurses learned that in some instances, family members refused the patient’s partner from visiting. Consequently, nurses enforced different visiting times so that family could visit at one time and the partner at another time. ◆

Helena Spyrou, Union Education Officer

nteu.org.au/myunion/scholarships/joan_hardy

Joan Hardy was active in higher education unionism for over 30 years and was the first woman President of UACA (one of the predecessors of NTEU). Joan was a tireless advocate for union amalgamation and was a key negotiator in the formation of NTEU, becoming Vice- President when the Union was formed in 1993.

This $5000 scholarship, established by NTEU in memory of Joan Hardy who died in 2003, is available to a student currently enrolled in an academic award of an Australian public university and undertaking postgraduate study of nurses, nursing culture or practices, or historical aspects of nursing as a lay or professional practice and expects to submit the thesis within one year of being awarded the Scholarship.