RCPI to host Ireland’s first ever Sexual Health Awareness Week
Next week, from the 28 to 31 May, RCPI will be hosting Ireland's first Sexual Health Awareness Week (SHAW), which is aimed at promoting sexual health awareness at a national level. A mix of public meetings, debates and interactive workshops will take place in RCPI, all of which are free and open to the public.
Some SHAW events will deal with very topical sexual health issues, such as choice in contraceptive provision, skills for parents when talking to their children about sex, the age of consent for sexually activity, transgender patient issues and care for victims of rape and sexual assault.
The programme for SHAW also reflects modern Ireland, a more multicultural and diverse society that thinks and behaves very differently to the Ireland of thirty years ago. The evolution of HIV treatment in Ireland over the past thirty years is the focus of a public lecture on Tuesday 29 May. And on the same day, the HSE Crisis Pregnancy Programme will launch its report Attitudes to Fertility, Sexual Health and Motherhood Among a Sample of Non-Irish National Ethnic Minority Women Living in Ireland. In the context of the changing face of religion in Ireland, Aids Care Education and Training (ACET) will be holding a workshop on how to address HIV-positive patients refusing medical treatment because of religious belief in divine intervention.