Introducing Hepatitis SA
Please note that we have now changed our name from the Hepatitis C Council of South Australia to Hepatitis SA, and this magazine is now the Hepatitis SA Community News. We will still be offering all of our current services under our new name, as well as broadening our focus to help people who are living with hepatitis B. Note that we have not change our physical or postal addresses, and that our old email and web addresses will continue working. Here Executive Officer Kerry Paterson explains the change: Over the past few years, we have begun to expand our work to take on more of a role in responding to chronic hepatitis B in South Australia. This includes activities such as advocating for a SA Hepatitis B Action Plan, facilitating SA participation in a national hepatitis B needs
assessment, training our staff in hepatitis B knowledge, facilitating hepatitis B education evenings for GPs, developing a hepatitis B information resource, and providing information and support to people with chronic hepatitis B through our telephone service. Both the Australian government and the SA government are recognising hepatitis B as a major health concern, with the development of the first National Hepatitis B Strategy in 2010 and the proposed development of the SA Hepatitis B Action Plan for early 2012. It is timely for our organisation to change our name to Hepatitis SA to be more inclusive of people with hepatitis B, and to align ourselves more closely with the national peak organisation, Hepatitis Australia, and other state and territory hepatitis organisations such as
Hepatitis NSW, which have also made this change to be more inclusive of hepatitis B in their identities. The majority of our work is still concerned with providing information, support, referral, education, prevention and advocacy services for and on behalf of people affected by hepatitis C, and this will remain the case for the foreseeable future. However, we hope that additional funds will be made available to Hepatitis SA through implementation of the National Hepatitis B Strategy and SA Hepatitis B Action Plan in the near future to enhance the hepatitis B services we currently provide. Kerry Paterson
Hepatitis SA Community News December 2011 • 1