Photo cutline: Shelley Crawford, Hep C nurse clinician, holds up part of the treatment for Hepatitis C.
The face of a Hepatitis C client in Prince Albert lights up as she reads and re-reads the last lab tests that tell her the virus is undetectable in her system.
She just has two more timed blood tests.
“And if it’s clear both times, it means I don’t have it anymore and for me that’s a whole load off my shoulders, now I can think about, think about my grandchildren and think about being able to enjoy them,” said the woman, who asked for her name not to be mentioned.
“I’m very positive about my future now, now I have a future, now I can plan, set goals, achieve, or not.”
The 59-year-old stops and laughs.
“There is always a second time.”
She hasn’t always been this upbeat about having Hepatitis C. She was diagnosed in 1997 and it was only a little more than six months ago, that she realized treatment was available.
“For many years I believed that I could die, anytime because of the disease and all that goes with it.”
Shelley Crawford, Hepatitis C nurse clinician at the Prince Albert clinic, said she hears a lot of that and is working to make sure people realize that it isn’t a death sentence.
“Even patients who are ready for treatment need reassurance, that confidentiality is the priority and that we will help them. We also try to de-stigmatize those feelings that they have as well,” she said.
The message is easy, be aware, Hepatitis can affect everyone, but Crawford said, the World Hepatitis Day literature expresses it best.
“Know it. Confront it. Hepatitis Affects Everyone, Everywhere,” reads the posters, documents and website marking today for awareness.
Even with awareness there seems to be a ways to go in addressing stigma.
According to the client, even now that she is on the road to recovery, she doesn’t plan on telling anyone.
“Having Hepatitis C, at my age … to me it was dirty, dirty inside my body and now I’m clean, I’m clean and I’m just so happy,” she said.
The “grubby” feeling and the fear of being shunned has prevented her from having relationships and they made her feel depressed.
A lot of those feelings are because of the way Hepatitis C is transmitted through blood-to-blood contact such as contaminated tattoo equipment or shared needles, said Crawford.
The stigma is correlated with the behaviour, she said, people and the public see as a punishment “for what (they) have done.”
This frustrates addictions specialist Dr. Leo Lanoie.
Too many people view Hepatitis C and HIV as diseases bad people get, he said.
“And they’re really aren’t any bad people, they’re just people who live in bad circumstances and make bad decisions, so there is a lot of judgement out there that shouldn’t be.”
Discriminating against people with addictions can make it difficult to convince those people to come in for treatment, which is frustrating, he said.
“The odds of them being cured go way up (if they get help), it’s a very treatable disease,” he said.
It’s about more than just preventing the spread of Hepatitis C, but addressing HIV cases as well.
“It’s pretty safe to say most people who have HIV also have Hepatitis C,” Lanoie said, because the route of transmission of HIV in Saskatchewan is through injection drug use.
“So if we see someone when they have Hepatitis C, we know that they (could) have a lifestyle that puts them at great risk of getting HIV.”
By intervening when someone only has Hepatitis C, treating it, helping with lifestyle change, “then we essentially prevent them from becoming infected with HIV,” he said.
To expand the information available about Hepatitis C, Crawford is launching a Hep C Information/Support Group for the first time. The first group will meet at 7 p.m., Aug 24.
While there are vaccinations available to prevent Hepatitis A and Hepatitis B, there is no vaccine for Hepatitis C, so prevention becomes important.
Sometimes people think because it’s not happening to them, they won’t worry about it, Crawford said.
“But this is happening in our community. The rates are rising, so it’s important for all of us to be aware of how it’s transmitted and to decrease that stigma,” she said.
ahill@panow.com
