ANDREA PIZZIE, HEPATITIS AUSTRALIA GENERAL MANAGER: I am very pleased to be here today to launch our ‘New You’ campaign with Assistant Minister Rebecca White, Member for Bass Jess Teesdale, our lived experience speaker Steven Taylor and Naomi from TasCAHRD. We really want to raise awareness of hepatitis C and get the word out that you can get tested and there is a cure. We are fortunate that we've had these wonderful cures available on our PBS since 2016. It's a tablet for eight to 12 weeks, and most people experience little to no side effects of that. We know that 70,000 people in Australia are still living with hepatitis C and many of them don't know that they have it. Lots of people journey for years with the disease with very few to no symptoms and often pass off symptoms as things like old age.
We're really here today to encourage people who may have been exposed, whether it was via a backyard tattoo, a blood transfusion prior to the ‘90s, an overseas medical procedure, they might have tried injecting drug use at some point in their life, to really come forward and request a hep C test. And the thing that we really want to hammer home today is that you don't need to disclose how you might have got it, we just want you to come forward and get tested, and that's why we're here to launch the New You campaign. We developed this campaign with our members. We've got TasCAHRD here today, we developed it with Hep Queensland, Hep New South Wales and partners from the Burnet Institute, from the Centre for Social Research and Health, and others including ASHM. We're really pleased to be working here with the Australian Government to progress hep C elimination, and so I'll introduce the Assistant Minister Rebecca White to launch the New You campaign. Thank you.
REBECCA WHITE, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING: Thanks, Andrea. There's not much more I need to say, really. I think Andrea's covered it all exceptionally well. The New You campaign is a $15.9 million investment by the Australian Government to support raising awareness of hepatitis C. There is a cure, and for 95 per cent of Australians who are living with hepatitis C, they can be cured, and medication is available through the PBS. It's about an eight to 12 week course of tablets. It provides very great results with very few side effects.
The campaign we are launching today has been piloted here in Tasmania in partnership with TasCAHRD, who've done a huge amount of work in the community. We are encouraging Australians who might be living with hep C and who do not know it, just go and have a simple blood test with a GP. You don't have to disclose the reason why, but we know that particularly men who are aged 20, 30 or 40 who might have had a tattoo overseas, who might have had a blood transfusion at some point in their life, are at high risk. And there are about 70,000 Australians who are living with hepatitis C, and many of them don't know it.
The risk of continuing to live with hepatitis C and not treating it could result in cirrhosis of the liver, liver cancer and other diseases, and it is entirely preventable. These types of screening programs that we're going to continue to promote through this partnership we're launching today could save lives, and it really is a simple message to Australians. If you are concerned that you might be living with hepatitis C, go and see your doctor. Have a blood test. You don't have to disclose the reasons why you need it. And treatment is available, fully subsidised through the PBS and you can be cured. I’ll hand over to Steven Taylor. He’s a living example of the benefits treatment can provide to somebody who's been diagnosed with hepatitis C. Great. Thanks, Steven.
STEVEN TAYLOR, HEPATITIS C LIVED EXPERIENCE: Thank you so much. Yeah, my name is Steven Taylor and I'm here representing a lived experience story. I used to have hepatitis C, and I say that in the past tense. I've been cured of that virus now for close to 20 years. My story mirrors, I think, a lot of people out in the community in that I actually lived with the virus for a long time, not knowing I even had it. Because the unfortunate thing with hepatitis C is as liver inflammation, there's not a lot of symptoms for a long time. They build up very slowly.
It was only when I went to see a doctor who just showed a bit of initiative in asking me about my liver health and put me onto a course of treatment that was successful. If I hadn't had that treatment, I might not be standing here today, not to scare anybody. But hepatitis C can, as was said, end up in cirrhosis and liver cancer. That's the bad news, but the good news is it's entirely treatable, entirely preventable, and there is an effective cure.
It really doesn't matter how a person comes to have hepatitis C. There's obviously a lot of social stigma and ignorance in terms of how the virus continues to perpetuate in the community. But in the absence of good healthcare information, the stigma gives people a lot of false ideas and very unhelpful ideas about medical treatment. But the fact is, it's very easy to manage disease with help from GPs and doctors. Yeah, and I just thank everyone for putting some attention on this.
JOURNALIST: I guess, what would you say to someone who has just been recently diagnosed?
TAYLOR: I would say that the important thing is to really ask those questions from your doctor, from the nurse, from whoever you're dealing with in the healthcare setting. Because I think it's very important to understand the transmission pathways, mainly in terms of knowing how it's not going to be transmitted. And I was diagnosed when I was 14. Now, the information wasn't as well known and certainly wasn't as well presented back then, but there can be a lot of scare stories about sharing food or physical contact with people. But the truth is that hepatitis C is only really transmissible in terms of blood-to-blood contact.
It's really important to firstly find out, just for the sake of reassuring you and the people around you, that you're not in danger or you're not a danger to anyone else in terms of contamination.
So that's the first point, but the second point is how to actually manage from there. So that's usually going to be going on the medications, the current medications, which are the DAAs, direct acting antivirals. Yeah, so I'd encouraged you to ask your doctor or your nurse for all about the medication.
JOURNALIST: We know that men are, I guess, pretty bad with health when it comes to getting checked and going to the doctors and all those sort of things Why is the campaign like this important?
TAYLOR: Well, I think it's important because a lot of men are less good at looking after their health. I think because there has been so much stigma around hep C in the past, there's this assumption that there's no way you could have had it or even if you suspect you might, you simply just don't want to know about it. I think in the past some people have been a bit fatalistic about it, if you have had hep C, because there were some previous medications in the decades past that were very difficult to take and had a very low success rate. I've certainly talked to people in different community settings who didn't think there was any hope for any treatment. Yeah, so I think that and the stigma has biggest problems. Did you have anything else?
JOURNALIST: know it was a few years ago now, but how did you find the medication?
TAYLOR: Well, I took the previous treatment regime that I've just mentioned. So my story is a little atypical, but it is worth exploring this in contrast to just how easy the medicine is to take today. What I had to take was a six-month course of subcutaneous injections called interferon, which is just a horrible villainous name for a drug. In my case, there was a lot of side effects. There was no guarantee, a very low kind of clinical success rate. My experience was quite difficult, but since then I've become a community health worker, and I've supported people on the newer treatments.
And I mean, the worst that I've observed with people is maybe a little bit of a headache or nausea here or there. But over the course of several weeks, it's virtually symptom-free, so it's very easy to take the medication now.
NAOMI GILSON, EDUCATION AND OUTREACH, TASCAHRD: We're here to talk about the testing campaign. We worked with communities, with health professionals, with researchers and with the government, basically trying to eliminate hepatitis C living in the community. We're really excited about this new campaign. It's helping us get to people that we may not have gotten to before.
We also work with Hepatitis Australia with the HepLink line, so people can ring in if they've got questions or queries around hepatitis or around where they go for testing. And we have some hep C nurses in Tasmania, so both in the south and the north of the state, where people can go and have free testing and also access the treatments. So that's all free for people across Tasmania, and we like to provide local support for people who might have questions about that.
JOURNALIST: Do we know how many people in Tasmania have hep C?
GILSON: Hepatitis Australia might be able to answer this one correctly, but it's around a thousand people, just over a thousand people.
JOURNALIST: And how many nurses were there, sorry?
GILSON: We've got two, one in the north and one in the south, and they travel around in the community. They go to community settings, so people who may not want to access their local GP or are not quite sure where to go, they can go to their community testing sites. There's information at a lot of the local health centres, but also on our website, so the TasCAHRD website will take people to where the next clinic is going to be.
Thank you, and for anybody who wants to know more about the campaign, please ring the HepLlink number, 1800-437-222 if they want more information.
JOURNALIST: How many people do you believe are undiagnosed?
PIZZIE: We have about 70,000 people in Australia, and we think- like, a lot of those people don't know that they currently have it. The exact stat for undiagnosed people we might have to get back to you on, because it’s not on the top of my head.
JOURNALIST: What would be those most common symptoms very early on?
PIZZIE: A lot of people experience fatigue, general malaise, and lots of people who have hep C and don't know it put it down to other things like general health, particularly the cohort that this campaign is trying to reach, old age. That 40 to 65 year old age group generally just kind of passing those symptoms off as general unwellness, yeah.
JOURNALIST: Why Tasmania as a target?
WHITE: Well, the Australian Government has partnered with Hepatitis Australia to make sure that we can roll this campaign out across the country. Tasmania has a higher rate of hepatitis per head population than the rest of the country, so we know we need to focus our efforts here first. TasCAHRD is a well-established organisation that does great work in this space already, so it's an easy choice to partner with them to make sure that we can reach some of those Tasmanians who are living with hepatitis who do not know it but who can access easy treatment and potentially be cured.
JOURNALIST: Yes, so obviously the sand issue, the toxic sand issue is popping up in other states and here in Tasmania. What is your response to this happening as Assistant Health Minister?
WHITE: As a parent, I'm very concerned to see the fact that this product has been available in the Australian community for as long as it has, and it has been identified in schools and early childhood settings, including in some aged care settings too. We know that vulnerable cohorts have been exposed to something that is potentially containing asbestos. I think the most important thing at this time is to provide clear information so people can make the right choice about how to handle this product if they've got it in their home, and also so our school communities can respond appropriately. Each jurisdiction is responding based on advice from their own health and safety authorities, and that's why we have seen a bit of a different response across the country. But ultimately, everybody's acting in the best interest of children and vulnerable people in mind and removing this product, whether it's on our supermarket shelves or whether it's in classrooms.
JOURNALIST: Do you think the State Government's handled this appropriately?
WHITE: It’s up to each jurisdiction to decide how they do respond. I would imagine that there are parents like myself with children in public schools who are a little bit miffed at the different information that's been provided to us compared to the Catholic and independent schools, and there doesn't seem to be a clear explanation provided by the Tasmanian Government for the different approach. The only advice has been quite similar coming from health and safety authorities. Ultimately, though, we want to make sure that our children and our teaching staff are safe, and the best way to do that is to remove this product from circulation in community, from our homes and from these school environments.
JOURNALIST: It took 24 hours for the State Government to issue shutdowns for public schools. Does that frustrate you as a Tasmanian?
WHITE: I think a lot of Tasmanian parents were looking for answers because they were seeing some schools shut and others not shut and were a little confused about that. It's really important for the Tasmanian Government to provide clear information and to base that on good evidence, because ultimately, we all want the same thing. We want our kids to be safe, we want our schools to be safe environments. And really, it's about providing good information as early as possible so that we can do that.
JOURNALIST: DECYP also had published a list that was inaccurate. I guess, what's your response to that?
WHITE: I'm sure there are many parents who are very frustrated to learn that the information provided was inaccurate. It would have been frustrating for the teaching staff as well who are dealing with those inquiries today. We really need the State Government to be clear in its communication. This is dealing with quite a serious issue, asbestos in a product that's been targeted at children and vulnerable people. We need to make sure that parents have good information, and the government has to be accurate in how it communicates that.
JOURNALIST: Does the Federal Government have a role to play? I mean, this isn't just Tasmania, it's across the country.
WHITE: The ACCC has been working as a federal organisation to provide information to state jurisdictions about how they respond and working with the retailers of this product to recall it. We're also making sure that there's good information coming to states when they've got questions about how they respond.
JOURNALIST: Just on the letter that the Prime Minister penned to states and territories requesting they rein in on hospital spend, do you think that's practical for regional areas like Launceston where it does cost more to keep and retain staff?
WHITE: We're obviously in the middle of negotiations for the National Health Reform Agreement which commenced in December 2023 and are continuing. We would like to get an outcome by the end of this year. But it's quite obvious there's a lot happening through the media where states and jurisdictions are trying to position to make the argument, and I can respect that. Of course, states and territories are going to make the argument for more funding for the services they're delivering, particularly when it comes to healthcare. But we have put $20 billion extra on the table to support health reform to make sure that we can deliver health services as Australians require it. And it's important that we negotiate in good faith here. The Prime Minister is just stating the position of the Federal Government, and states are doing the same on behalf of their constituencies. At the end of the day, the best outcome is going to be delivered at the table where people sit together and negotiate this, making sure that we keep front and centre the interests of consumers who need access to good quality healthcare.
JOURNALIST: Do the states have the right, I guess, to feel frustrated, noting that the Federal Government is looking like they're going to be walking back on their commitment to the states and territories?
WHITE: We are committed to delivering an outcome. We’ve already put an extra $20 billion on the table. We've provided an uplift this financial year to all states and territory jurisdictions, including here in Tasmania – an extra 14 per cent funding for them to deliver hospital care in our state. We are working very hard to make sure we can deliver better health outcomes. And you can see that through our investment in Medicare Urgent Care Clinics, through our investment in aged care reforms, through our investment in the National Disability Insurance Scheme. The Federal Government is playing a significant role when it comes to providing care to Australians, and we are working in partnership with the state and territory jurisdictions to support them to deliver hospital-based care.
JOURNALIST: HACSU is about to step up industrial action from today in some facets of the hospital system, citing the pay negotiations have again stalled. I mean, the Federal Government does have a role to play in all of this. You guys provide some of the funding for our hospital system. Is this not just going to, I guess, make the situation worse?
WHITE: Can I just be really clear? The Federal Government provides 70 per cent of the funding the Tasmanian Government uses to service our community, whether that's through our schools and education system or our hospital health system. The Federal Government is the primary funder of services delivered here, but ultimately, it's up to the Tasmanian Government to manage their budget appropriately and prioritise the investments in areas where Tasmanians deserve it. The State Liberal Government has been in power for 11 years, and over that time it has mismanaged the budget. We are seeing just today in further scrutiny of budget estimates discussions around cuts to health, discussions around deficits and debt that are hampering our ability to deliver services to Tasmanians who need it most. The Australian Government is doing its part.
Traditionally, we have provided anywhere between 60 to 70 per cent of funding to the Tasmanian Government for its delivery of services, so we are at the higher end of funding compared to historical levels. We are stepping in and providing extra support so Tasmanians can access they need. And on top of that, we're funding other services like the Medicare Urgent Care Clinics, like the Medicare Mental Health Clinics, like the extra funding we're providing to GPs so they can bulk bill. We are doing what we can so Tasmanians can access the healthcare that they need, along with fully funding public schools. These are all things the Federal Government's doing. If there are questions about how the State Government is managing its hospital system, how it is paying its workers, then they are the matters that they have to deal with and explain about how they are prioritising the funding they are responsible for delivering.