Listen to an edited audio recording of the event above. Download an MP3.

Leigh Neal grew up in an affluent family. Her mother died when she was 15 and her father died soon afterward, and the family then lost its home. From the age of 16 onward, she lived on her own.

In the six decades of her extraordinary London life, Leigh went from a young hippy in the 1960s – immersed in sex, drugs and rock and roll – to an inmate at Holloway Prison, where she was diagnosed with the HIV she has miraculously managed for a quarter of a century. Since then, she has been instrumental in setting up several charities for women with HIV, including POSITIVELY UK.

She has also mustered the energy to cope with a series of medical afflictions, from two rounds of breast cancer and nephrectomy for chronic pyelonephritis (kidney failure) to femur and hip fractures caused by osteoporosis. She attributes her success to meeting Chelsea and Westminster Hospital HIV Consultant Dr David Hawkins. According to Leigh, Dr Hawkins has ‘continued to save her life for 25 years’. Hawkins remains her primary caregiver, within a truly unique patient–doctor relation. The forms of sympathetic communication this patient and doctor practice – serious, humorous, ironic, playful and sentimental – are noteworthy on many levels.

Facilitator
George Rousseau, Professor of History, University of Oxford

Speakers
Leigh Neal, Patient
David Hawkins, Consultant Physician, Chelsea & Westminster Hospital

This event is FREE.

This event is fully booked. Spaces may become available on the day of the event. You can register for the waiting list 90 minutes before the start of the event in Wellcome Collection.

More information on our ticketing policy.  

This event is part of the series Tell it to Your Doctor.

Image used with permission from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.