My sister Maureen McGinley, who has died aged 77, was a member of the Order of Columban Sisters, a progressive Irish Catholic order whose nuns train as doctors, nurses and teachers before going abroad.
While serving in Hong Kong, Maureen made a significant and pioneering contribution to the care of people who are HIV positive. In 1994 she founded the Society for Aids Care (SAC), the first non-governmental organisation of its kind in Asia. It continues its charitable work to this day. Maureen devoted her life to the welfare of the people of Hong Kong from 1976 until 1999.
Maureen was born in Clydebank, Scotland, to John McGinley, an accountant, and Mary (nee McGee). After attending Notre Dame high school for girls in Dumbarton she joined the Columban Sisters in County Wicklow, Ireland, in 1966, and then began studying general nursing at Whipps Cross hospital in east London. After a year at Stanmore hospital, north-west London, specialising in orthopaedics, she was assigned by her order to Hong Kong in 1976. There she nursed at Ruttonjee sanatorium while learning to speak fluent Cantonese. She participated in community projects, including a free clinic at Fanling in the New Territories district. She also taught Sunday school and particularly loved working with children.
At the height of the Aids crisis in the late 1980s, Maureen was among the first to care for HIV-infected haemophiliac patients who had contracted HIV through receiving contaminated blood products. These were mainly children, but she quickly identified a much wider problem of HIV infection in the community.
With warm determination, Maureen successfully mobilised the community’s response to Aids. She was the key person in establishing the first few Aids non-governmental organisations in the locality, and founded the SAC in 1994 to provide home nursing and hospice care. She spearheaded the opening of an SAC hospice in 1997 at the Lookout, also in the New Territories, which was financially supported by the Keswick Foundation, government funding and charitable fundraising.
Maureen served as a member of the Hong Kong Advisory Council on Aids from 1993 to 1999 and sought justice for haemophiliac children infected by HIV, especially in terms of the provision of school places.
She was appointed MBE in 1995.
In her late 50s, Maureen developed a rare form of dementia that cut short her career. She was looked after lovingly at the Columban Sisters nursing home in Magheramore, Wicklow, until her death.
She is survived by three of her siblings, John, Gerry and me. Another sister, Trisha, predeceased her.
