Fr. Kieran Creagh C.P. and
Leratong Hospice

Fr. Kieran Creagh was ordained a priest in 1993. He had already spent a year in Botswana during his training with the Passionists and now after a short period working in Ireland and Scotland
he was soon asked to travel to South Africa to help out for six months. "I remembered my time in Botswana and I thought it would be good to go there," he said. "It was very rare for a white priest to have a presence in a township. It was very, very shocking. It was so different to fly into there. It was two days before I left the house."

"There was a great vibrancy in the township, a great spirit. After I had been there for six months. I agreed to stay. It was violent. I remember having to do two, three, four funerals a day. One who had been shot by police and-one who had been shot in a hijacking. Aids was also a big problem. It amazed me, there was all this talk about Sars yet there were five million people with HIV/Aids. Their lifestyle is different with the poverty trap they are living in. It was a shame in the culture if a woman didn't have a child. I wouldn't be against condoms. If you can't abstain, then protect yourself and protect the person you are with. Sex is in your face. But I try in my own way to get the message across.

I am not coming at it from a moral point of view but from a country which has five million people with HIV/Aids. There were, witch doctors telling. men with Aids that if they had sex with a virgin they would be cured. So, a lot of men were having sex with children to get rid of it."

Fr Creagh said the fact that hospitals and family members are not allowed by law to reveal that certain people have Aids is also a problem.
"Nobody dies of Aids, it is never on a death certificate," he said. "People are afraid to go to a clinic and get treatment. In the middle of it all you have these girls, a lot of them in their twenties and thirties, who get sick and very thin. You just go into houses and shacks and the smell is terrible."

As a direct response, Fr Creagh sourced the materials and cash to build a hospice for Aids/HIV sufferers in the township of Atteridgeville, Leratong Hospice - which means Where There Is Love - was officially opened in June this year. The north Belfast priest resides permanently at the hospice in a small house at its rear. "I was delighted when we opened the hospice," he said. "My friend did the plans for free. It has 18 beds but we can go up to 24. It cost £400,000 which seemed impossible but we got it. We have seven professional nurses and two part-time doctors."" Fr Creagh admits he has a lot to thank his family for as they were among the main fundraisers for the hospice.

Last November, Fr Creagh took his campaign to fight the scourge of HIV/Aids one step further when he became the first person in the world to be injected with a trial vaccine against Aids, a chapter in his life which he admits was a "big moment". The Belfast Passionist was one of 24 people to receive the injection in Baragwanath Hospital in Sowetho. "I was trying to get my friend who is a doctor to work at the hospice and he was trying to get me to take the vaccine," he said. "I thought it was important to highlight that we need other people for the trials. The night before I got it I was really nervous. "It was a big moment. A doctor and nurse stayed with me for one hour and then I had to face the media. It will be a year next month since the vaccination and that's me. They need more people though, about 200 for the next trials. It's working towards a preventative thing, it would be something you give to babies like MMR. It's not a cure."

Fr Creagh said he believed the South African government could be more proactive in its fight against Aids/HIV. "I don't see them (the government) challenging young people to change their behaviour. I don't see it or sense it," he said.
"You are not allowed to promote smoking at all. Yet sex is on the TV, in adverts, in music. Most adverts have a high sexual content. We have young people, in their twenties, in the wards of the hospice. They should not be lying there. They should be out dancing and singing. Aids is winning and life is losing."

Fr Creagh, who will return to South Africa on Friday, said he planned to help the children of Aids victims as part of his future work, after the Leratong Hospice was up and running. "I will see what God has in store for me next."

Donations can be made to the Leratong Hospice by contacting Friends of Leratong on 028 9071 7635 or at the Bank of Ireland, High Street, Belfast through Sort Code 90-21-27 and account number 12779453.