The Queen’s representative for Greater London has visited the Mildmay HIV treatment hospital at Shoreditch as part of its 150th anniversary, which the late Princess Diana famously visited many times in the 1980s.

East London Advertiser: Lord Lieutenant.Ken Olisa tourws Mildmay HIV hospitalLord Lieutenant.Ken Olisa tourws Mildmay HIV hospital (Image: Kois Miah)

Lord Lieutenant Kenneth Olisa and his wife Julia joined in a singalong with the Mildmay’s Day Service patients as they toured the hospital behind Shoreditch Church in east London.

It was Mildmay’s first official visit of their anniversary year and followed on from Prince Harry—in the footsteps of his mother 25 years before—who came in December for its official opening after total rebuilding.

Lord Lieut Olisa was particularly interested as a technology entrepreneur in Mildmay’s computer suite, where patients get rehabilitation brain training to re-learn skills for independence, such as shopping, socialising, travel planning and getting information, and to build confidence that has been lost due to HIV brain impairment.

He is the first black Lord Lieutenant of Greater London, who topped the list in November of Britain’s most influential black people.

Mildmay’s fundraising director Kerry Reeves-Kneip said: “His friendly and genuine interest in our work gave a real boost to staff and to patients.”

His tour last week then moved to Mildmay’s In-patient Unit where Kenneth and Julia met patients and nursing staff.

The hospital is world-famous for treating those living with HIV and their rehabilitation. Its work has changed significantly in the last 25 years since the late Princess Diana’s regular visits, from end-of-life care in the 1980s to rehabilitation today with newly-developed anti-retroviral drugs.

The Mildmay became the first dedicated hospice for those dying of Aids in 1988. But medical advancement today has turned it into a centre for the care of people living with Aids—rather than dying from it.