My friend Alastair MacInnes was one of the people treated by Charles Farthing in the early 1980s, in what was rightly described as a climate of fear about this mysterious disease that was killing previously healthy, predominately gay young men.
Alastair was originally treated at a hospital where food on paper plates was pushed through a slot into his isolation room. No one knew what was wrong with him and few people came near him. This contrasted with his next experience as an inpatient at St Stephen's hospital. Alastair and his partner had absolute faith in Dr Farthing and his team. On one memorable evening several of the inpatients held a Bet Lynch earrings party on their ward. Against a backdrop of media hysteria about the "gay plague", people with Aids were treated as human beings there, not lepers. I believe that this was down to Charles Farthing.
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