Your cart is empty
The Champion #120 – November 2023
This issue:
- Bringing EMPOWER to the NSW HARP Forum 2023
- Hepatitis NSW at Hello Doctor Day at Granville TAFE
- Beyond the C: now accredited
- Help us improve our site and go in the draw to win $50
Bringing EMPOWER to the NSW HARP Forum 2023
In August, Hepatitis NSW launched our new EMPOWER initiative—a hep C antibody testing project that was developed in collaboration with the Kirby Institute.
This project involves our specially-trained peers who guide participants through the entire process of testing—taking care of intake, questionnaires, delivering the results and referring them for further RNA testing if required. This breaks down perceived barriers to accessing testing and treatment, and takes away some of the workload from healthcare professionals.
Since its launch, we have had four activations of this project in partnership with Storr Liver Team in Western Sydney LHD, all hosted at Parramatta Mission, with great success.
In order to help expand this initiative, Pippa Bray—our Program Officer for Community Testing and Treatment at Hepatitis NSW—presented our work to the NSW HARP (HIV and Related Programs) Forum.
We are aiming for a total of 1,200 community testing enrolments over the next two years, and we want to bring EMPOWER into all community health spaces: homelessness services, rehabs, OST (Opioid Substitution Therapy) clinics, and soon, even community corrections. Currently, we have a small workforce of EMPOWER trained peers but as our workforce grows, so will our ability to collaborate with more healthcare teams.
Hepatitis NSW at Hello Doctor Day at Granville TAFE
Hepatitis NSW was pleased to be a part of the ‘Hello Doctor’ event at Granville TAFE on 1st November.
Hello Doctor is a health-related expo that is held in collaboration between the Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP) at Granville TAFE and the Western Sydney Local Health District. The event gives AMEP students the opportunity to connect with service providers in the community that can assist them with health related issues.
There are around 500 AMEP students, with more than half from Afghanistan who speak Dari. The second largest population group is Chinese, making up around 13% of the students.
Hepatitis NSW provided resources in Arabic, Chinese and English with information about hepatitis B and C. Our staff Mina Kim and Jessica Luo encouraged participants to check their liver status by having a blood test. Their prepared quiz, resources and give-aways were very popular.
Events like these allow us to reach the wider community, helping people who’ve newly arrived in the country to navigate the Australian health system so they can access the help and information they need.
Beyond the C: now accredited
The Australasian Society of HIV, Viral Hepatitis and Sexual Health Medicine (ASHM) is pleased to announce that their national partnership program ‘Beyond the C’ is now accredited with the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) and the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM) for five Measuring Outcomes for Continuing Professional Development (CPD) hours.
This is great news for general practitioners, who are required to participate in CPD that is relevant to their scope of practice. In addition, their practice will receive an incentive payment of $1,500 upon completion of the program.
Beyond the C provides personalised support and guidance for GPs to find people who may be living with hepatitis C, in order to engage with them and connect them with care.
In Australia, more than 122,000 people are still living with chronic hepatitis C, with many unaware that they have the virus. With the availability of direct-acting antivirals (DAAs), we have an opportunity to prevent hepatitis C from causing liver damage and impacting a person’s health and wellbeing. Finding and treating people with hep C gives us the opportunity to eliminate the virus by 2030.
For more information and to register your interest >>>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!
To do the survey >>>CLICK HERE
 |
