Newspaper Article 2022 – Brave Eve melted hearts

Brave Eve melted hearts

After being chased out of Australia, a young child with HIV was welcomed into Hawke’s Bay with open arms. At the weekend, that girl, Eve van Grafhorst, would have turned 40. Katie Harris looks at how the plucky child changed NZ forever

Eve’s mother, Gloria Carey, tears up when thinking about her. Although her daughter’s legacy now stretches far beyond our shores, before she became a darling of New Zealand, the family was “kicked out” of Australia.

“It was a pretty horrid experience, it was an unbelievable experience.”

At just 28 weeks pregnant, Carey gave birth to Eve on July 17, 1982. While the premature baby fought for her life, she received several urgent blood transfusions at Sydney’s Royal North Shore neonatal unit.

Although they kept her alive at the time, one transfusion also contained HIV-positive blood.

“I don’t have any animosity or anything towards that person, because nobody knew,” UK-based Carey says.

The family didn’t find out for years, assuming their daughter’s small stature was due to her being premature, but when she was 3 years old, in 1985, they received the diagnosis.

Following the news, they continued on as usual, but issues arose when the family informed the manager of a preschool in Kincumber, New South Wales, where Eve was going to attend.

“It just blew up from there and they wanted to throw Eve out. Basically, they didn’t want her to be there but I thought she had every right to be there.”

Eve didn’t know anything was wrong other than that her family was upset and she was on TV.

“She didn’t see the bad in anybody, it was us as a family who had to deal with it.”

Public understanding of HIV/Aids at the time was low and stigma, discrimination and homophobia against those with the condition were common.

The situation soon attracted Australian media attention and through the family sharing their plight, the news quickly reached New Zealand shores.

Kiwi journalist Robert Stockdill launched an appeal in early 1986 to help raise funds for the family to relocate to New Zealand. A few months later, they made the shift. From the moment they stepped off the plane she says it was the “absolute total opposite” of Australia, in every way possible.

Spots at schools were offered from around Aotearoa, and they settled on a Rudolf Steiner school in Hastings where Carey grew up.

Three meetings were held with parents prior to Eve’s arrival at school, and while five decided to remove their children, three of them came back

As soon as Eve touched down in New Zealand she was looked after medically by Dr Richard Meech, who was then the Health Department (now the Ministry of Health) spokesperson on matters relating to HIV/Aids.

“We knew how it was transmitted, [but] we had huge gaps in our knowledge and understanding of the virus,” he said.

When he was appointed to the job, Meech says tension was high as the Homosexual Law Reform Bill had just been passed.

Back then, he says advising on HIV/Aids meant they had to grapple with three issues people were “not comfortable” with: homosexuality, injecting drug users and sex workers.

Into this whirlwind came Eve.

Meech, who retired in 2009 and is still based in Hawke’s Bay, says her [his] experience changed the image that had previously been presented overseas of Aids, often showing graphic pictures of people with the illness.

He says he takes his hat off to the late broadcaster Paul Holmes, who continued to present Eve’s story on his 7pm show.

“I think [it] helped remove a lot of that tension the public perception had on Aids.

“Holmes kept bringing this out to people, so there was this emerging hope, so there wasn’t this equivalent of the fear and revolution that I could see in other countries overseas. And it was because of all of that we were able to move way beyond Eve herself, the injecting drug territory, and even into the [sex worker] territory.”

Though only a child, Eve gave talks at schools, educating people about HIV/Aids and why they shouldn’t be afraid.

One memory still stuck in Carey’s mind is a time Eve participated in a “hug-a-thon” in Hawke’s Bay.

“There were people there that openly said to Eve that they were scared to give her a hug, but she would just hold her arms out and say you can’t catch Aids from me.

“She was an old soul with a little body and so much wisdom.”

She had a strong effect on Meech too, [h] professionally and personally.

“Eve would have been the first person in the country to have trialled at least three antiretroviral agents; because of the position I was in I was able to liaise directly with the pharmaceutical companies.

“I think New Zealand does actually owe a great deal to this child.”

On a personal level, even today, recalling his final visit to Eve’s home still makes his heart melt.

“Just as I was going out the door, thinking I will never see this child alive again, a little voice from the bed [coughs] ‘Dr Meech, I love you’.”

Her story also touched people around the globe, including Princess Diana, who sent her a birthday gift one year. In the documentary All About Eve, the child fondly speaks of meeting Elton John, Jason Gunn and Helen Clark.

Although every year of Eve’s life was a blessing, “especially being told she would not live past 5”, the year she died, 1993, aged 11, was “extremely heartbreaking” as Carey knew her daughter was battling through each day, but never complained once.

Right until the end Eve gave her all, planning her own funeral, including the fabric and colour of her coffin, the service, the music and all her classroom and friends were involved.

“She wanted to come home and have all her friends and family to be with her before the funeral because she said, they will all support each other and us during our grief…our precious Angel Eve.”

Photo captions –

Eve van Grafhorst, with mum Gloria Carey, was “kicked out” of Australia after contracting HIV from a blood transfusion as a child, and moved to Hawke’s Bay.
Photo / Supplied

Eve van Grafhorst pictured with Paul Holmes.   Photo/ NZME