Community Report: In February 2022, Positive Life held a community consultation and engagement forum (CCEF) to engage with people living with HIV about the impacts of two years of the COVID-19 pandemic on our lives and experiences as we navigated our health needs and the health system. Attendees travelled from the Sydney inner and outer Metropolitan areas, with 50% of attendees from a culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) background. Over a third of the group were heterosexual men and women living with HIV, and half of the total group were men who have sex with men living with HIV. The full day program explored how attendees, all people living with HIV perceived our current quality of life, our future and the strategies or solutions that would improve our quality of life.

Emerging themes included isolation, reduced access to healthcare and social support, and challenges to maintaining our quality of life. Participants were agreed around the importance of security in mitigating the impacts of the COVID pandemic on our lives as people living with HIV in NSW. Security strategies were broken down around an axis of secure housing, finances and health, with issues of dental health, healthy relationships, a reformed migration system, and end of life or pro-choice assisted dying being identified as associated with agency, reassurance and safety.

Community Report:2022 Emerging Issues CCEF report