This community consultation was an opportunity for Positive Life staff and board to engage and consult with people living with HIV and our partners about HIV stigma and discrimination. The report highlights and confirms that HIV stigma and discrimination is a daily reality for people living with HIV. These included the impact of repeated trauma, shame and ‘othering’ causing extra burden for people living with HIV from clinicians and systemically.

Many participants living with HIV talked about the traumatic experience of repeated HIV stigma and discrimination which forms a barrier to our ability to engage with, access and navigate health services. Clinicians shared how colleagues can unwittingly perpetuate stigma with their patients prolonging shame and trauma. Participants from a culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds shared how language barriers further confounds experiences of stigma and blocks people living with HIV from receiving appropriate health care.