Immigrant Outreach by an HCV Patient Group in British Columbia

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• published: 25 Mar 2015
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Ms. Cheryl Reitz, of European-American origin immigrated from the US with her young family in 1976 at the age of 28 to homestead in the remote NW corner of British Columbia. In 1987 she got her teaching certificate and in 1997 her M.A. She taught English in Canada and Asia for many years. Diagnosed with hepatitis C in 1992 by the Red Cross, she was not advised to take treatment until 2009. The 48-week treatment didn't work, but in 2011 she joined a 24-week trial with the new DAAs which worked very well and had no side-effects. In fact she was able to walk the 1/2 marathon in the middle of treatment. She is now a grandmother of three, a retired teacher and former translation agency owner who is rapidly recovering from cirrhosis and now volunteers for HepCBC at the Victoria office. Ms. Nancy Neel, of Indian origin, was born in Thailand and immigrated to Canada with her family in 1970 at the age of 14. She is a Medical Lab Technologist with Vancouver Coastal Health. Nancy is married and has 2 daughters. In her profession, she contracted hepatitis C from a needle stick injury in the late 1970s, but it wasn't diagnosed until 1997. She was able to trace it back as a result of diligent record-keeping of on-th-job incident reports. She underwent the 1-year treatment with interferon and ribavirin in 2009, but relapsed. Last year, she got on a clinical trial and so far, the 3 month follow up has been cleared...she is now waiting for the 24-week follow up. Now currently she is a volunteer with HepCBC to help increase awareness in the general population about the disease. Ms. Phung Pham left Vietnam in 1979 with her husband and 2 little girls by boat, as " boat people " and after years of learning English was able to complete nursing training in Winnipeg and has been working as an RN since 1987. She was diagnosed with hepatitis C in 2004 and successfully completed treatment in 2006. Since then she has been helping Vietnamese people with hepatitis C, particularly by supporting them during treatment, not only in person in Victoria but through phone support to people all over Vancouver Island. She has encouraged all of her friends and family to get tested for HCV as there is a high % of hepatitis C people in the Vietnamese community. Also whenever she can, she takes every opportunity to educate her co-workers who still have great fear of looking after patients with hepatitis. She and her husband are grandparents of an extended family, and in the opinion of many she makes the best Vietnamese shrimp rolls in Canada. This video was recorded on March 11, 2015 in Toronto, Canada as part of the HCV Services for Immigrants in Canada: Challenges, Opportunities and Lessons Learned workshop put on by the Canadian Society for International Health. For more information, please see www.hcvnetwork.com.