An MP has revealed he’s dwelling with HIV throughout a Home of Commons debate.
Kevin McKenna, Sittingbourne and Sheppey MP, turned the third MP to share his HIV standing as he spoke in a debate in Westminster Corridor on Thursday.
Mr McKenna stated visiting pals with HIV in hospital as a younger man helped him to think about stepping into his former profession as a nurse.
Encouraging individuals to “simply get examined”, he stated: “It’s just a bit scratch on the finger and there must be no stigma.”
The Labour MP, who was newly elected within the 2024 Normal Election, stated: “You will not move this illness on while you’re handled.
“You will not endure. And truthfully it is boring and mundane.”
Mr McKenna was the third MP to talk overtly about his HIV standing following Lord Chris Smith in 2005 and former Brighton Kemptown MP Lloyd Russell Moyle in 2018.
In his Commons speech, he stated: “I’ve lived a very long time as an HIV constructive man.
“I’ve lived a very long time in my life beginning off with pals taking tablets that did have fairly extreme negative effects, some negative effects that have been very disagreeable and led to them nonetheless affected by HIV after which AIDS.
“Now it is whittled down to 1 pill a day – and as I get in to my fifties it sits alongside my statins and my arthritis remedy.
“By the point I used to be correctly popping out within the early 90s, I met plenty of pals and lovers who had AIDS or HIV.
“I spent numerous time going to hospitals and it was there that I realised that nursing could be one thing that suited me.”
His assertion in Westminster Corridor got here as a part of a debate on HIV Testing Week, which takes place from 10 to 16 February.
Richard Angell, chief government of Terrence Higgins Belief stated Mr McKenna’s assertion was “a massively vital act however delivered as he would really like it to be handled – as simply one other long run situation.”
He stated: “Kevin talked to the change in his lifetime. He reveals that individuals dwelling with HIV can’t simply entry medication which means they will dwell a wholesome life and can’t move on the virus however they will go on to succeed and serve our nation.
“Right now Kevin has delivered a physique blow to HIV stigma and can proceed to vary hearts and thoughts in the way in which HIV is considered by most of the people.”
