Standing in the delivery room wearing a flimsy pair of rewashed latex gloves and holding a pair of surgical scissors in my hands, I became acutely aware of one of the many statistics which had been shared with us on day one. I was a medical student working in a government hospital in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa; it was 1997. The figure flashing through my mind was that 50% of the women using the delivery unit were HIV positive.