The debilitating physical and emotional pain of an HIV-positive mother of six, which she witnessed as a young 17-year-old work study student in a private hospital, pushed Simone Sills into the world of nursing and long years after that woman died she has lived on through Sills’ work that has been centred around HIV and AIDS.
It has been over 30 years since she had that experience, but tears still flow from Sills’ eyes when she speaks of the woman, whose name she remembers.
“That one woman has lived with me,” she told Stabroek Weekend in a recent conversation. “I was not even a professional nurse at the time. I was doing work study when I met that patient. I was only 17 years old at the time.”
