Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Man!
February 01st 2010
Which part of the newspaper do you read first? When I have a little time I make straight for the obituaries! Here you can read about men and women who have set the standards of their era. The brave, the clever and the wicked have their lives laid bare.
The outstanding life recorded in January for me was Sir Donald Acheson. Not a household name but those who lived through the 1980s and early 1990s may well remember his face.
I served on the Southampton Health Authority of which Sir Donald was the Chair after being the founding Dean of Southampton Medical School. Donald came of a dynasty of public health doctors; his father and brother served in this capacity. So it was a natural move for Sir Donald to become the national Chief Medical Officer.
He was a great communicator - and this was just as well. The AIDS/HIV epidemic took place under Sir Donald's watch at the Department of Health. This was coupled with the governing party being led by the most middle class fundamentalist ever to enter Number 10 Downing Street. It is to Sir Donald's everlasting credit that he masterminded a public relations strategy that hit all the right notes to introduce a health promotion strategy. He was sexually explicit in his television appearances. The advertisements were direct and to the point. Needles exchange systems for drug addicts were introduced and every part of the country was put on alert. He ran this campaign when there was no ‘cure' available and there were many famous people dying with this reported very openly in the press and broadcast media.
Helping the nation face AIDS/HIV was Sir Donald's great achievement which was almost Churchillian as this was the greatest public health crisis in post war Britain. Above all, this was facing the unknown.
Cometh the hour, cometh the man!
Brian L. Strevens
We will endeavour to update this blog on a weekly basis. Contributers Brian Strevens (Director of the Institute) and Francis Davis (Director of Policy) plan to submit their blogs on alternate weeks.