“Friendly, convenient, quick,” “welcoming crew of folks,” and “great experience,” are not the sort of comments you’d expect to hear about a GUM clinic.
But that’s what users of multi-award winning HIV testing service, Testing Times, have been saying. Yorkshire MESMAC has been running Testing Times, a free, rapid and confidential HIV testing service in Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield and North Yorkshire for several years in locations such as bars, clubs, saunas and universities.
Talk to a trained gay friendly professional at a time and place convenient to you and after discussing what risks you may have been involved in you can then decide if you still want to have the HIV test without any pressure.
The test itself involves taking a small sample of blood from your finger, and after 20 minutes you’ll be told what your HIV status was 12 weeks ago. You can also get a pee in a pot test for Chlamydia and Gonorrhoea with the results texted to you once received by the laboratory.
Testing Times run free drop-in sessions in the evenings and weekends in Leeds and other areas.
For example in Leeds there are drop-in sessions at the Basement Sauna Complex at 7 Heaton Court on the first Sunday of the month between 2pm and 4pm, at the Steam Complex Sauna, 8 Eyres Avenue every Wednesday between 3pm and 6pm and at 60 Upper Basinghall Street every Tuesday and Thursday between 6pm and 8pm and every first Saturday of the month between 12 noon and 3pm. For details of drop-in times and venues in other areas, or if you would like to book a daytime appointment, check out the website at www.mesmac.co.uk/testing-times.