by Rebecca Wigod
When one young Vancouver gay man asks another where he had his
HIV test done, the answer is often, "I went to Mary Lou."
The trusted nurse, who is so well known among gays and lesbians that her first name alone identifies her, is Mary Lou Miller.
A white-haired grandmother of 66, Miller doesn't immediately look like someone who can talk about gay sexual practices without blushing. But that impression is quickly dispelled.
"People who disapprove of anal sex shouldn't be working in health care," she said briskly.
"People in health care express a lot of 'shoulds' and 'shouldn'ts.' But when it comes to sexuality and love, and how people express them, the response should be, 'If these are the things you are going to do, this is what will help you stay safe.' "
Miller is the research nurse on the Vanguard Project, a Vancouver study of young men who have sex with men. She recruits participants for the study - the aim is to enroll 1,000 - and does much of the project's HIV testing, as well as the all-important counselling that precedes and follows every test.
"Prevention of HIV is my strong card," said Miller, who previously worked among Vancouver's street youth and prostitutes, at BC's AIDS testing clinic and in the Bute Street Clinic at the Vancouver Gay and Lesbian Centre.
She spent most of her career as a pediatric nurse, and by the mid-1980s had become a senior nursing manager at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children.
In 1987, the career of her banker husband Don took her to the Bahamas, where one in three people is HIV-positive. Because sitting on the beach bored her, she began doing AIDS work.
Miller said that while many Bahamians are sick when they are diagnosed, in contrast to the slower-developing North American disease, their spiritual faith and sense of community keep them strong. Families "took care of their own," she said.
She found the experience "pivotal," so when she and Don moved to Vancouver in 1990, she went looking for more AIDS work.
Miller is empathetic, a quality that serves her well on the street. When she worked with intravenous drug users, she felt privileged to have a window on their lives.
"They have a lot to teach us," she said.
Empathy also informs her work with gays and lesbians. She feels the weight of the societal disapproval that burdens them.
"It's okay for heterosexuals to have unwanted pregnancies. That doesn't have the same stigma," she said.
"But if a gay guy has unprotected sex, [people think,] 'How could you?' But in the passion of the moment, people don't always do sensible things."
She sees Vanguard participants at the Downtown South Community Health Centre, and keeps a cell phone hooked to her belt so patients can always reach her.
She has become a mother figure to gay men. She has been told: "You're like Madonna out there on the street, you're that well known."
Steve Martindale, coordinator of the Vanguard Project, said Miller had to win people's faith.
In 1993, when the BC Health Ministry was considering hiring her as an outreach nurse for the Bute Street Clinic, AIDS activists were incredulous.
"We actually were opposed to her, initially, which I'm a little bit embarrassed about now," Martindale said.
"The person who had had that role before her was a gay man.
"When we heard they were giving the job to some old lady, we were kind of amazed."
Yet Miller quickly gained people's confidence.
Martindale said young people whose families have rejected them "can go and see Mary Lou, and she's very maternal. A lot of people lack that kind of nurturing in their lives."
Matthew Martin has been a patient of Miller's.
The first time he saw her, at the Bute clinic, "She made me feel comfortable and secure," he said.
Because "Mary Lou is a very cool person," Martin often invites her to speak to the youth group he leads at the Gay and Lesbian Centre.
Miller has been able to recruit street youth for the Vanguard Project, making its enrollment more diverse than it would otherwise have been and ensuring greater validity for its data.
The project is being conducted by the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS. Miller, who was sidelined by the mandatory retirement at 65, is working for the centre on contract.
Said Martindale: "We were very pleased to be able to bring her back."
For more information, contact:
Bonnie Devlin
Vanguard Project Coordinator
608 - 1081 Burrard Street
Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6Z 1Y6
Tel: (604)806-8306
Fax: (604)806-9044