FOR more than a decade Rhonda Daniels worked with Aids patients, helping them to live with a debilitating disease, while trying to educate the community about the dangers of the HIV virus.

Her efforts were officially recognised last weekend when she was named in the Queen's Birthday Honours List, as she was one of 11 Bermudians to receive the Queen's Certificate and Badge of Honour.

Affectionately known under various sobriquets, such as 'the Aids nurse' and 'the Condom Queen' (thanks to a 1991 educational campaign which entailed her giving out contraceptives), Ms Daniels was a shoulder to lean on for dozens of patients over the years.

Now 45, she worked for the Department of Health and was also heavily involved with the Aids charity and helping service the Allan Vincent Smith Foundation.

She described the experience as "rewarding and draining" and two years ago she moved on to become the educational officer for the Department of Consumer Affairs.

This week, reporter JONATHAN KENT and photographer TAMELL SIMONS stopped by for a chat with Ms Daniels.

Q: Congratulations on your honour. Was it a complete surprise to you?

A: Yes. Someone from Government House called me up and said I was on the Honours List and I said, 'What for'? She said it was for my work with Aids.

I've had some awards before. I was Nurse of the Year in 1995, I got the Public Health Professional Award in 1998, Bermuda Gold gave me an award for being best educator in 1996, I think. But I've always focused on what needs to be done rather than trying to get recognition.

To tell you the truth, I feel a little embarrassed. I don't like that sort of attention. I hold my head down in the street so people won't recognise me and want to talk about it. My phone's being ringing off the hook since it was announced.

My parents, Louise and Kenneth (Sundown) Daniels, were very proud and it's because of them that I am the sort of person I am today.

We were a very close family and we were never told that we couldn't do anything. I applied to all sorts of nursing schools in Britain until I was ready to give up. But they kept pushing me until I got in.

Q: How did you come to work with Aids patients?

A: My background is in nursing. My qualifications are in general nursing, midwifery and intensive care. I did my nursing training in Wales and when I came back to Bermuda, I ended up in the newborn nursery, which I loved. For personal reasons, I left there and got the job as nurse of epidemiology at the Health Department.

That was in 1988. At that time we had had Aids in Bermuda for about five years and there had been some education about it.

My responsibilities included tracing contacts of those people who had Aids and doing some sort of Aids programme.

I was just doing what needed to be done. To me it wasn't anything special that I did. It was part of my job description.

Q: How did you get involved with the Allan Vincent Smith Foundation?

A: I used to work part-time at Pan Am and my supervisor there was Allan Vincent Smith. I knew he had Aids and when he was ready to tell our co-workers that he had Aids, I was chosen to do the presentation about the disease after his father had told the staff.

And then, because of that, when he died they asked me if I wanted to be a director of the Foundation.

I agreed to do it, because I was getting fed up of the hardship people with Aids were going through: people not wanting to sit next to them because they had Aids, not wanting to give them a job. That was another way of getting the message out to the public.

That was my aim, to get the word out about Aids so Bermuda could come forward as opposed to staying in the Dark Ages.

Q: In the early days, do you think there was a real lack of understanding and a fear of Aids?

A: In the '80s, that's when we had the first recorded case here and I came back from Wales in 1983. I hadn't really heard about Aids. But my mother was telling me about this communicable disease that could kill you. I said, 'Oh, that's flu'. She said, no this is something else'.

When I went to the Health Department, that's when I really started to learn more about it. They sent me to Trinidad to learn more.

Because of the lack of understanding in those days and people being shunned, I felt that patients really needed me. I liked it because I developed friendships with them.

I remember one day, four guys came by. One was happy because he had found a job even after he revealed his status as having Aids. He had not had a job for three years.

Another guy was happy because he could move his hand. He had had a stroke because of the toxoplasmic infection of his brain. Another came by looking for somewhere to hang out and the other came because he was depressed.

We sat there and had a laugh and there was whole lot of noise coming out of the office. People were wondering if I was OK with all these men. We were just talking about things they could do to help themselves.

Q: What did your work with the Allan Vincent Smith Foundation entail?

A: I was a director and eventually became the vice-president. I was teaching volunteers about Aids and how to answer questions on the Aids helpline.

Q: Do you still work with the Foundation?

A: No. One of the things about working in the Aids field is that it can drain you. It was consuming my life and I needed to step back and take a break. What happened was that I started to lose my sense of humour. That's not the way to be.

It was draining because there were some hard-headed ones who wouldn't listen to you. Or you'd hear some negative comment. One of the things that bugged me about the Press is that they kept referring to Aids 'victims'. You're a victim of crime, you're not a victim of Aids. They talked about the 'innocent' wife who got it from the husband who was messing around.

That was draining too. When you thought you were making inroads, you hear another negative comment.

Even today, people still call me about Aids and I keep abreast of new treatments and what's going on.

Q: Do you think there is a greater awareness about Aids within the community than there was when you started in 1988?

A: Yes. It's part of the school curriculum now. The awareness is better among younger people, but we still need to work on adults.

When I started the Health Department had about 64 cases on record, when I left there were about 450. So I saw a lot of cases in my time and I would say that at least half of them I knew in some way or other beforehand. I always gave them the option of seeing another nurse.

Q: How much of a difference have new treatments made to the lives of Aids patients?

A: A big difference. Back when I started here they just had AZT. Then they brought out DDC and DDI and all of a sudden they brought out the new drug cocktails that Magic Johnson was going on about.

Now people in Bermuda are not dying with Aids, they are living with it. Patients became not so needy, as they were able to get on with their lives.

I was once sent to the Medical College of Virginia to work with Aids patients there and one of the things that struck me was that our patients were less sick than those over there.

I wondered whether that was because of where we live. Sunshine is probably a great healer. There's also the fact that we are a small community and your family is close by. Even our children with Aids were doing better here than the ones I saw in Virginia.

Q: Did you know many people who died from Aids?

A: Yes, but I would never go the funerals, because it was hard, you developed a relationship with the patients and then they weren't there any more. I went to the first funeral but after that, I thought I would have to stop going.

But I would still call to check on the family member or the caregiver to see how they were doing.

Q: What is the Aids situation like today?

A: Well, I don't know the latest statistics, but in the States there is another wave of infection happening. It's a new generation. You work with one generation and manage to decrease the cases, then the next generation comes along and the cases go back up.

Education has to be ongoing and to tell you the truth, I really don't know how much education is going on in the community.

Q: Is education the key to controlling Aids?

A: Education is a part of it, but it is also the responsibility of individuals for their own behaviour. Are people going to say, 'I'm HIV positive and you're going to have to use a condom if you have sex with me'? Some people might tell you that, but nine times out of ten they won't. Therefore you have to be cognisant of that every day of your life. HIV has a huge impact on your life.

I would like to think that nowadays people are more accepting of people with Aids, but not accepting of having Aids in the community. We need plenty of preventional education.

Q: Has working with Aids patients been rewarding for you?

A: Yes. Periodically at the Health Department I would go through the death file to check up on contacts. I would see someone's name and I would have memories of them or think about their children.

I didn't really choose the job. I applied for it because of what was going on with my life at the time, but I did it for 13 years and it became rewarding.

Q: Do you enjoy your current job at Consumer Affairs?

A: Yes. At long last we have the Consumers Protection Act. In a way the job's similar in that I'm educating people about their rights and responsibilites as consumers, just like I used to educate people about Aids.

Now that we have the Internet, that's another way to get the message out. I have to have some understanding of consumer law and that's been challenging.