A Big Disease With A Little Name

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A Big Disease with a Little Name: Ward 5B

Episode 3

Ward 5B

A Big Disease with a Little Name

BBC Radio 4 - A Big Disease with a Little Name, Ward 5B

In 1983 the first ward dedicated to AIDS opened at the San Francisco General Hospital.

In 1983 the first ward dedicated to the treatment of AIDS opened at the San Francisco General Hospital. Alison Moed Paolercio remembers her time as one of the ward's first nurses.

In the early 1980s, Alison Moed Paolercio was taking shifts at the San Francisco General Hospital, while studying for her nursing degree. It was there she first noticed young men in isolation units, as a result of a mystery illness they had developed. 

What shocked Alison was the disdain her fellow nurses showed for these patients, who were at that time exclusively young, gay men. 

"I had never really encountered that kind of prejudice among nurses before," she says.  "I was angry. And it made me less afraid of taking care of them, perhaps."

What followed was the opening of the first dedicated AIDS ward in the world,  where Alison was one of the first dozen nurses charged with taking care of patients suffering from this new and complex disease. 

The staff on Ward 5B and the local community created an holistic approach to caring for AIDS patients, which would be known as The San Francisco Model, and which would be emulated around the world.

Narrator: Chris Pavlo
Producer: Richard Fenton-Smith

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