In the History Council of Victoria’s first Book+Author event for the year, Dr Yves Rees is joined by Dr Geraldine Fela, who will be discussing her book Critical Care (2024).

HIV and AIDS devastated communities across Australia in the 1980s and 1990s. In the midst of this profound health crisis, nurses provided crucial care to those living with and dying from the virus.

Bringing together stories from across the country, historian Geraldine Fela documents the extraordinary care, compassion and solidarity shown by HIV and AIDS nurses. Critical Care unearths the important and unexamined history of nurses and nursing unions as caregivers and political agents who helped shape Australia’s response to HIV and AIDS.

Geraldine Fela is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of History and Archaeology at Macquarie University. Her research and teaching traverses histories of gender and sexuality, labour, social movements and medicine.