Saturday, 23rd November, 2024: Richard Keane, CEO, Living Positive, World AIDS Day

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Hey, this is Aave Puliali from the Victorian Greens. You were listening to Saturday Magazine on Join and a 4.9. You are on Saturday Magazine with Nevena and Macca. We have our next guest on the line. We're speaking with Richard Keene. All things coming up very soon on World AIDS Day. Welcome to Saturday Magazine. Good morning. I'm sorry I couldn't make it into today. I'm a little bit under the weather and I just didn't want to take a risk of passing on a little bit of the flu that I've got at the moment.

Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity to have a chat. That's very thoughtful of you, Richard. We don't. None of us want the flu or anything worse. So World AIDS Day is coming up. It's not far away. It's tomorrow week, actually. So what's planned? So we, our event issue will be held at RMIT, which is just near the State Library and Central Station on Friday, the 29th of November. We start at 9.30 and we've got the Minister of Health

Marianne Thomas launching the event again this year, which is fantastic to get that government support. And I heard you having a chat with Dean Smith. I also want to acknowledge Dean's long contribution to the friends of HIV at the federal level. He has been an absolutely key driver of the ongoing bipartisan support of HIV over many years. And I just wanted to kind of make that acknowledgement, having listened to Dean. Thank you. Thank you.

Richard, I'm going to be participating in the inaugural Red Ribbon Run that's being done by our friends at Thorn Harbour Health next Sunday. And I was interested to hear any reflections that you had on taking a slightly different tack to keeping a conversation about people living with HIV and AIDS, but perhaps using this new and novel way to communicate that.

Absolutely, we're always interested in your novel ways to kind of keep the conversation going. I know that in my role, I guess the major change for us is around HRB and aging. That'll be the focus of this year's event for us. By 2030, 70 to 75% of people living with HRB will be over 50 years of age. And look, that's part of

the success story of the Australian response in a whole lot of ways. But what we're finding and the work that I'm doing now with Alfred Health and other key partners is a lot of advocacy in the aged care sector. We've had three or four incidents over the last six months where people have been denied care because of their HIV status. And we really do feel that the systems of aged care and support and a whole range of other functionalities around that are not ready.

for our ageing population and we will be raising a lot of focus over the next 12 months from HIV and ageing and the challenges with it for people. Maka, you know, you've been around for a long time like I have. I kind of stand on the shoulders of some amazing giants that kind of enabled me to do the work that I do today and just look at their care.

may not be provided in the most appropriate way is really alarming to me. So we're doing a huge basis here and into the future on HIV and AIDS. That's fantastic, Richard, because everyone is entitled to receive the appropriate care and respect. And just because you get old doesn't mean that, oh, well,

You know, we're actually now going to start discriminating against you again and we're going to treat you differently. It's an important initiative and I'm glad you're doing it because it's something that's, you know, just a little blip on the radar at the moment. But, you know, it's only unless we act on it. And it's not just, you know, organizations and people such as yourself, you know, ministers that have responsibility for this area.

need to step up and need to speak out. Absolutely. And actually say, this is not okay. Yeah. And to Nevada's point, we're absolutely wrapped in Thorn Harbor's initiative. We try and keep a trophy at the forefront of people's thinking and maybe just a reminder to everybody listening. And again, Maca will know this. A lot of what we have today is LGBTIQ community members stem

from the movement around HIV and government decision to engage community to address that issue. It built the framework that we kind of all live within today and that confidence and that partnership between government

and community was kind of fostered in those days. It's a really great opportunity, the fun run on the weekend is a great opportunity for younger people to find and learn a bit more about that history because it hasn't been prominent in the last 10 years because of the successes that we've had, but it really is the foundation of our movement today.

As part of the Living Positive Victoria World AIDS Day event, there is going to be a community forum moderated by Dr. Catherine Barrett, and the panel discussion will be around focusing on living and ageing well with HIV, but also topics such as long and healthy lives, age support care and ageing services,

In your opinion, Richard, how ready are aged care supporting services for an increase of people living with HIV and what else needs to be done for their preparedness? I think there needs to be systemic change. I mean, it's not all grim. We do have the foundations of that ongoing partnership that's been there for 40 years between government, between health, between clinicians,

research and there's a lot of research being done into early onset, become morbidity, kind of advances now where a lot of people, 40 and over, are being moved on to statins to reduce cholesterol because long-term use of the medications that keep us thriving and alive and living full lives have some side effects and to reduce cardiovascular risk. So there's a whole lot of research coming through to keep us to hear the curve and keep people well and

I often have to remind my community because it can feel a bit daunting. There's the stigma around aging, there's the stigma around HIV and you can feel a little bit overwhelmed. But I just remind folks that there's another side that advantageous for positive people is that we have had quality care throughout our lifetime of living with HIV and we have constant health monitoring. So when we do get these comorbidities and they do come on a bit earlier than other members of the community as we age,

We are being monitored and we have fantastic wraparound healthcare to address those issues as they arrive. So this will be part of the panel discussion and there's some absolutely great work. So there'll be nurses from bottom class nursing services who engage with positive people in the community. There'll be people living with HIV to talk about their experiences of living well and ageing well with HIV.

And just in closing, Richard, can you please share the details for the event, how people can find out more and how to stay connected? Fantastic. You can register for the event for our website at lpv.org.au.

And again, it starts at 9.30 on Monday the 29th and it's at RMIT this year. All the information about the event is online via our website. And if any folks are listening and you have some challenges, you're aging with HIV, feel free to reach out to have a conversation with us at info at livingpositivevictoria.com.au.

Richard, always a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you for sharing your time, all the best with the event, and we very much look forward to hearing how it all goes. Thanks so much. Have a great day. You are on Saturday magazine with Nevena and Macca. Stay tuned. We'll be right back.

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