The Champion #118 – September 2023

This issue:

1. Nominations now open for the Hepatitis NSW Cheryl Burman Award
2. Peers are Superheroes: EMPOWER Project kicks off in Western Sydney
3. Great results at Health Info Day in Cabramatta
4. Hepatitis NSW peers drive huge success of HEP CURED 2023 campaign
5. Hepatitis NSW celebrates and thanks long-serving volunteer Paul Jones
6. Fresh and updated What You Need to Know now available
7. Help us improve our site and go in the draw to win $50

Nominations now open for the Hepatitis NSW Cheryl Burman Award

Hepatitis NSW’s Cheryl Burman Award is an annual award, given to a person or group who have done outstanding work in NSW in the fight against viral hepatitis. This could be in the advancement of treatment, support, information provision, prevention or management for people living with viral hepatitis.

The closing date for nominations for this award is 5pm, Friday 6 October 2023.

To nominate someone >>>CLICK HERE for more information.

Peers are Superheroes: EMPOWER Project kicks off in Western Sydney

On 28th August, Hepatitis NSW launched our new, exciting EMPOWER initiative.

EMPOWER is a peer-implemented 1-minute hep C antibody testing project. It has been developed in collaboration with the Kirby Institute, with the aim of understanding whether people are more likely to have a hep C test if they’re offered a one-minute exposure test with the ability to test further and diagnose in just one hour.

After months of planning, as well as developing a comprehensive peer training program to skill up our peers to deliver the project EMPOWER – including the actual antibody test – we held our first outreach event at Parramatta Mission along with our Western Sydney LHD partners, the Storr Liver Clinic team.

Our peer team are responsible for the intake, enrolment, survey, and testing process. This gives the opportunity to share stories, deliver health promotion, and break down the stigma surrounding hep C. As the project is part of a research study, we are also able to reimburse participants with a gift card for their time.

Participants are guided through the entire process by a peer who creates safety and reassurance throughout the healthcare delivery. From the two incredibly successful EMPOWER Outreach engagements completed to date, our amazing peers have screened almost 40 participants.

The response to the program, and our EMPOWER peers – Will, Grace, Bindi, and JD – has been overwhelmingly positive. We are looking forward to expanding the project reach in the coming months in collaboration with more of our LHD partners.

Great results at Health Info Day in Cabramatta

Hepatitis NSW enjoyed great success on 11th September at a Health Info Day in Cabramatta, where we teamed up with Multicultural Health, Multicultural HIV and Hepatitis Service (MHAHS), Liverpool Clinic, and Southwestern Sydney LHD.

The stalls featured a range of health promotional resources on hepatitis B, bowel cancer, and breast cancer, in English, Vietnamese and Chinese. Many people were so eager to attend that we found them waiting at the leisure centre in the morning before the event had even begun! The event was a great opportunity to provide information about different diseases and offer free screenings to the public.

Our free promotional mooncakes were a hit, drawing many people to our stalls. And we were thrilled to be able to provide liver function blood tests to 59 people, a significant milestone. We also received numerous requests for another event, which is very encouraging.

Hepatitis NSW extends our heartfelt appreciation to the nurses, cultural support workers, interpreters, and all staff members, as well as the active engagement of the Vietnamese community.

Hepatitis NSW peers drive huge success of HEP CURED 2023 campaign

During July and August this year, we rolled out our popular and successful HEP CURED 2023.

Our lived-experience peer workers are an integral component of this statewide hep C health promotion campaign. With the Mobile Mural nearby, our incredible peer workers engaged with members of the community, talking with them about hep C testing and treatment, and helping to direct them to our Local Health District clinical partners.

From data collected over the 19-day campaign, we’ve been able to demonstrate the scope and reach of the peer engagement component of HEP CURED 2023.

From 17 July–4 August 2023, there were 33 peer sessions across 24 events:

• People in community engaged with: 892
• People who saw a nurse: 454
• People who had a hep C test: 408
  • Dried Spot Blood tests (DBS): 226
  • Point of Care tests (POC): 151
  • Venous tests: 31

That’s over 400 tests for hep C in under 3 weeks! Compared to 2022, we saw a 300% increase in interactions with people, the number who saw a nurse during a peer visit, and people who were tested.

A huge acknowledgement to all our peer workers who contributed to this success: Allan, Amanda, Bindi, Gavin, Kiah, John, Glen, Grace, Jimmi, Micha, Tony, and Will.  Across New South Wales, in Redfern, Wollongong, Goulburn, Wagga Wagga, Parkes, Forbes, Mt Druitt, St George, St Leonards, Darlinghurst, Maroubra, Campbelltown, Newtown, Lismore, Grafton, Tweed Heads, Dubbo, and Miller (and more!), they engaged with almost 900 people in the community and contributed to a stellar outcome for our efforts in hep C education and testing.

Equally as rewarding has been the overwhelmingly positive feedback that we have received from our Local Health District partners regarding our engagement, planning, communication, and support in delivering the campaign this year. This grand tour of the HEP CURED Mobile Mural and delivery of the entire campaign with its many components – across a hectic three-week period – was made possible with much planning, scheduling, and juggling.

Hepatitis NSW thanks all our community partners, the Local Health Districts and the tireless nursing staff for their support and engagement in the peer component of HEP CURED.

Hepatitis NSW celebrates and thanks long-serving volunteer Paul Jones

In August, Hepatitis NSW staff gave a send-off to Paul Jones, who has volunteered with the organisation for seven years and is now hanging up his boots.

“As a volunteer, Paul went above-and-beyond with his contributions,” says Susanne Wilkinson (pictured), coordinator of the Hepatitis Infoline Line, which offers free information, support and referrals across NSW, including to callers from NSW prisons. “Paul tirelessly assisted with the coordination and collation of thousands of Hepatitis Information Packs, which were distributed across NSW to people in custody and correctional centres. Paul also contributed to mailouts of our regularly published Tx! MAG – our hepatitis comic magazine – and supported our office during the 2020 lockdown, when our organisation was running on skeleton staff.”

Are you interested in volunteering for us and supporting the services and resources that we offer? We would love to hear from you! >>> CLICK HERE.

Fresh and updated What You Need to Know now available

What You Need to Know, our popular, free, easy-read booklet has been given the once over.

We have updated it to reflect changes to the PBS co-payment and Closing the Gap pricing arrangements. It also includes updates on changes to treatment access, contact details for support, and links to online DBS information.

What You Need to Know has been one of our top resources for many years. It contains a wealth of information on hep C, covering cure and treatment, testing, transmission, prevention, family matters, and more. The current edition is cover dated August 2023, so if your service has older copies on display, then we strongly recommend reordering our most recent, up-to-date version.

To order What You Need to Know >>>CLICK HERE

Help us improve our site and go in the draw to win $50!

We’re striving to make our website as easy to access and comprehensive as possible. If you have two minutes, we’d love it if you could participate in our quick survey to help us improve the Hepatitis NSW website. To show our appreciation, we’ll put you in the weekly draw to win $50!

Congratulations to last week’s winner Grace!

To do the survey >>>CLICK HERE