When hysteria about AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) reached Australian shores in the early 1980s, Sister Annie Laurie decided she would not sit idly by and watch people die alone.
Newspapers referred to AIDS as "the killer plague" or "the gay plague" with the first, widely published case reported in Australia in 1983, but the first death from the disease is thought to have happened in 1981.
Sister Annie, from Sisters of Saint Joseph, says she was compelled to assist the sick and to better understand the disease.
"I saw this headline, 'modern-day lepers' and it was all about the horrible gay people and straight people were being quite cruel, so I thought I'd better do something about it," she said.
The cruelty would galvanise her to act and make plans to set up a safe house for people when they left hospital.
But in 1989, the community was scared and plans for MacKillop House in the Newcastle suburb of Carrington were controversial.
"[The sick] were treated really badly by neighbours and that sort of stuff," Sister Annie said.
"So I went to my superior at the time and I said I wanted a house with a few nuns. And she said, 'Where are we going to get that?'
"I said, 'I don't know, but that's what we need, and this is what we've got to do.'"
Sister Annie said she and the other volunteer nuns set about educating themselves about the gay community and the disease.
Her first stop was Sydney's Darlinghurst Wall.
"I came back to Newcastle, then said, 'This is what we've got to do, just learn about our gay community,'" she said.
"So off we went, we used to go out at night.
"And then we sat on this wall [at Darlinghurst] and there were all young men and young boys.
"It was a very tragic time because all the cars come by, like the Mercedes and the Rolls [Royce], and then they'd drive off with them and then come back with them later or whatever."
She also learnt a little sex education.
"I learned to put a condom on a cucumber and things like that," she said.
Andrew Whitbread-Brown, from the AIDS Council of New South Wales (ACON), worked with Sister Annie at the time and remembers sitting near the wall.
"We went to a pub, we got a cask of wine and we sat on the steps of the Sacred Heart Church, all of us at midnight, just watching the workers go by," he said.
Sister Annie said they also needed to learn about the risks.
"People were saying you could get it from mosquitoes or just walking past somebody, you could get it," she said.
"It was all dreadful stuff and so we got the health department people helping us to train us about blood safety and bodily fluids."
One voice made the difference
Plans for MacKillop House were initially shunned by the Carrington community, prompting town meetings.
"It was terrible because people were arguing and shouting at us," Sister Annie said.
"The thing that saved us — our neighbours … an older lady … she said, 'I had a blood transfusion and I could be one of these people needing this house and I've just got my results back from a blood transfusion and I haven't got it, but I could have had it.'
"So everybody just stopped and the house became a reality."
Mr Whitbread-Browne said Sister Annie was relentless in her efforts to care for the ill.
"She persisted, yes, because you can't say no to Annie," he said.
"She talked, though, right from the beginning when she was so determined she was going to make it happen. And she did."
MacKillop House operated for 11 years. It closed when treatment drugs improved and transmission of the virus started to occur through drug use.
"It was a wonderful, wonderful time of really being able to care for humanity," Sister Annie said.
In 2021, the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisation (AFAO) estimated 29,460 people were living with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) in Australia.
If the virus is untreated, it can lead to AIDS.
The current NSW HIV Strategy 2021-2025 is committed to achieving the virtual elimination of HIV transmission by 2025.
