Dr Veronica Moss, pioneer in Aids care at Mildmay Hospital

Veronica Moss swapped the relatively comfortable life of a GP for running Britain’s most controversial hospital. When she first heard of plans in 1986 to establish Europe’s first hospice for people suffering with HIV/Aids at the Christian-run Mildmay Hospital in east London, she felt “a strong sense of calling”, though not without trepidation. “My thoughts were whirling: was this why God had wanted me to move from my comfortable and well-paid GP position? What about Christian hobnail boots walking all over sick patients who were homosexuals, trying to convert them? How would we cope with gay prejudice against Christians wanting to care for them?”
The daughter of Christian missionaries in India, she had come to a resolution by asking herself what Jesus would do, and having satisfied herself that she had received a clear answer in prayer, embarked on a tour of London’s teaching hospitals to find out all she could about the virus.
The Mildmay Hospital near Shoreditch had been opened by a group of Christian women led by Catherine Pennefather in 1877. It became an NHS hospital in 1948, retaining its Christian ethos, but closed after health cuts in 1982. Moss was invited to join the steering committee fighting to reopen the hospital. When the Mildmay was reborn as an independent Christian charity in 1986, she was part of a formidable executive triumvirate along with Helen Taylor Thompson (known as Mrs T-T) and Dr Ruth Sims.
Treating the rapidly spreading virus was identified as an area where the hospital could fulfil an acute need. The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that attacks the immune system. Before effective treatment was developed, it often evolved into acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (Aids), which was usually fatal.
When the virus gained worldwide publicity in the early 1980s, no effective treatment had been developed. Feeding into homophobia that was more prevalent at that time, Aids became characterised as a “gay plague” because most early cases involved gay men who had caught the virus through having unprotected sex. High-profile deaths from HIV/Aids included the Hollywood actor Rock Hudson in 1985, the flamboyant pianist Liberace in 1987 and the singer Freddie Mercury in 1991.
In January 1987 Moss presented a proposal to develop a palliative care ward for people with Aids to the Mildmay’s board of governors, “committed Christians from a variety of denominations”. “That evening had a momentous feel about it,” she later wrote. “We had no money in the bank, and some anxieties, but the board members felt here was a challenge from God to do something very practical for people who were rejected and shunned by society, and to be Jesus to them in our acceptance and care. The decision was made unanimously to go ahead.”
Many of the hospital’s Christian supporters were outraged by the decision, with one writing: “How dare you go against God’s judgment like this? You should not be caring for them. You will drag Mildmay’s Christian name in the dirt.”
Letters from gay people were equally hostile: “How dare you think you can provide good care for us?” wrote a prominent member of London’s gay community. “Everyone knows what Christians think of homosexuals. We know that your only agenda will be to put pressure on us to convert and stop being gay.”
Such responses simply strengthened Moss’s belief that she was on a mission, but as she set about overseeing preparation of the new ward she ordered the removal of quotes from the Bible that were above every door and every bed and even on the ceiling above the operating table. “Some were comforting, some were a bit frightening or threatening,” she said.
Public hysteria and misinformation was still high when the Mildmay opened its first hospice ward for HIV/Aids patients in 1988. “People hurled stones and bottles at our windows and the patients as well and gave us constant verbal abuse,” she said. “There was a great deal of ignorance about the illness and how you got it. Even the medical staff were scared to start with, and dressed up in space suits to avoid becoming infected. The ambulance staff often would not even bring patients in. Domestic staff pushed a trolley of food into the room, but would not enter; patients were left alone and in distress.”
Moss put on teaching sessions for all the staff, including the cleaners and kitchen workers, and gave them an opportunity to air their fears and to have misconceptions sorted out. Patients shared their stories with the staff.
Moss quickly became one of Britain’s foremost specialists in care for HIV/Aids after spending a month at a facility in San Francisco, which was then leading the world in treatment. But she said the most important training was simply listening to the patients. “I heard many of their stories; saw their suffering and their courage; I listened to their families and their partners pouring out their love and care and anxieties; and also their experiences of rejection.”
Though gracious and measured, she was no less determined to gain acceptance for the project and found an ally in the then Conservative health secretary Norman Fowler, who had also visited San Francisco to observe treatment there; when Mildmay presented its case for funding, he was supportive.
In 1991, the entire hospital was dedicated to working with HIV/Aids sufferers. As the years went by, Mildmay became more of a treatment and rehabilitation centre than a hospice and was at the forefront of treating patients with antiretroviral drugs that enable many people with the virus to carry on leading normal lives.
The virus also spread through vaginal unprotected sex and in later years the disease became more associated with millions of cases on the African continent, with HIV often spread from mother to baby in the womb.
In 1998 Moss relinquished her role at Mildmay to develop an Aids treatment programme in Uganda, a task made considerably easier by the strong support of the country’s government and churches of different denominations uniting to help.
The Mildmay Centre for Aids Treatment and Care was opened in Kampala, Uganda, by the Princess Royal in 1998. A year later Moss opened the Mildmay International Study Centre in Uganda to train doctors and nurses in Aids care. She remained in the city for four years to establish the facilities.Moss returned to the Mildmay Hospital in London in 2002 to become its chief executive officer, but remained alive to possibilities to start new centres all over the world.
With funding from the UK Department for International Development (“We had to prove that we were not proselytising”) and the EU among others, she went on to help to establish Aids treatment centres in Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, Rwanda, Malawi, India and later eastern Europe, teaching and training health workers in HIV/Aids treatment and care.
Veronica Ann Moss was born in India in 1943 where her parents were Christian missionaries. Her father, the Rev Dr Clement Moss, was a doctor who set up the Padhar Mission Hospital in the state of Madhya Pradesh in central India. Her mother was Ingegerd, the daughter of pioneer missionaries in Ethiopia.
The child grew up wanting to be a nurse and when she returned to Britain to stay with relatives and study for her A-levels at Clarendon School in north Wales at the age of 17, she was already thinking about medicine.
After completing her medical training she had her introduction to the Mildmay Hospital as an intern for six months, working 100 hours a week. She completed her training at the Royal Free Hospital in London, but continued to widen her knowledge. First she worked as a senior house surgeon at the Padhar Mission Hospital in India. She gained postgraduate diplomas in tropical medicine in 1973, obstetrics in 1974 and child health in 1975. Armed with these new disciplines she returned to India that year to set up a community health project for 30 villages in the Padhar region. In 1978 she returned to the UK to settle into life as a GP to the nursing staff at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in east London and then in Bedford. After joining the fight to reopen the Mildmay Hospital, she took advanced courses in pain management and palliative care.
An avid reader who loved art and embroidery, Moss retired from the Mildmay in 2008 and thereafter was chairwoman of the charity InterHealth Worldwide, which she had founded in 1986 to support the health of mission workers overseas. A missionary at heart who never married, she continued to lecture on HIV/Aids treatment and to do health-based voluntary work in Uganda and India, where she was chairwoman of Friends of Padhar Hospital.
An estimated 40 million people have died of Aids and another 40 million are said to be living with HIV. The quest goes on to find a cure and a vaccine, and in the absence of them Moss was hailed for alleviating suffering. “Every time I see the enormous sad eyes of a child light up with laughter or the mother’s face relax when the child’s pain is relieved or I see a doctor whose attitude has changed because of my teaching, I know that I would not wish to be doing anything else and I thank God for the privilege.”
Dr Veronica Moss, pioneer in Aids care, was born on November 24, 1943. She died of lung cancer on July 18, 2024, aged 80