Hepatitis C Awareness afternoon in Halifax

Today I held a public meeting at the Queens Road Neighberhood Centre for local Asian people about Hepatitis B and C. I held the group jointly with Qadir, the men's worker at the local Healthy Living Centre. He invited some gentlemen from the local DIL health group, and I invited my Pakistani clients. About 15 people turned up.

I gave a presentation about Hepatitis B and C, about how they are spread, how common they are, and advice for people visiting Pakistan or Saudi. The main advice regarding Hepatitis B is for everybody who even might spend time in Pakistan or Saudi to GET YOUR HEPATITIS B VACCINATIONS!!!!!, just in case you get a sudden invitation for a wedding and don't have time to have the 3 Hepatitis B injections (they take about 6 months to complete). The main advice about Hepatitis C is for anyone visiting Pakistan to be BLOOD AWARE. Be careful about injections at the Dr, ask the Dr to open the needle in front of you. Be careful at the barbar shop, bring your own disposable razor just in case there has been a bit of blood left on the razor in the barber shop.

After the presentation I spoke to the group about the trip to Pakistan. Although many people in Halifax hail from Mirpur I have not yet made contact with people there. One person in the group gave me the address of a cousin who is on the treatment in Mirpur. We swapped numbers and addresses so that I can contact her and then visit her in Mirpur.

Also today I spoke again to a taxi driver, also originally from Mirpur. He is helping me contact a Dr from the Government Hospital in Mirpur. He also has a friend who has just been diagnosed with Hepatitis C.

I think all in all it was a good meeting.

Article in Asian Leader

There was an article in this weeks Asian Leader, local free asian newspaper. http://www.asianleader.co.uk/Stories/issues/issue-106/story-9.asp. This is really great publicity for our project.

Also this week our itinary for the trip has been accepted by theFlorence Nightingale Trust, and funding has been confirmed. We really are going to Pakistan! I almost can't beleive it, it seems to have all happened so fast.

Interview with Sunrise Radio

On Wednesday Ms SB and I were interviewed by the lovely Gail from Sunrise Radio in Bradford http://www.sunriseradio.com/. We spoke about the epidemic of Hepatitis C in Pakistan, and how important it is for people who have visited Pakistan to think about getting tested for Hepatitis C. We also spoke how important it is for people visiting to be very aware of blood, and to be careful especially if visiting the Dr or barber shop. Ms SB discussed her experiences of undergoing treatment for Hepatitis C.

The programme was transmitted on Friday. We do hope that people heard the show! It was great to have the opportunity to let people know a little bit about Hepatitis C.

Aga-Khan University in Karachi

Mrs SB and myself have decided to fly to Karachi first as this will give us the opportunity to speak to the main researchers in Hepatitis C at Aga-Khan University in Pakistan. To allow this part of the trip we hope to be now flying out from the UK on March the 15th. From Karachi we will fly to Lahore, and from there we will drive to Faisalabad, Islamabad and Mirpur. We have decided we will do a weeks voluntary work in the earthquake zone. I am sure my nursing skills will come in handy somehow, as will Mrs SB's orgainisational skills and energy! We will finalise our itinary this week on Thursday or Friday. I will put a copy of the itinary on here.

ICAN Drug Rehabilitation Project in Islamabad, Pakistan

On Sunday I had a telephone conversation with Carol Smith who works at ICAN in Isalamabad. ICAN is a Christain based orgainisation that works with drug users there http://www.ican-pk.org/index2.html. Carol described it as being equivalent to a non-medical drug rehabilitation unit in the UK, although emphasising its lack of development. I am planning on providing some trianing to the centre so that they can provide Hepatitis C testing for their clients. We discuseed the form this trianing could take. Carol emphasised the improtance of keeping the training easily understood, as many of the workers have recieved low levels of education and have high levels of illiteracy.

Carol has asked me if I can provide a donation of leaflets I can source in the UK that are about drug use and are written in Urdu. These will be great help to their project. If you can help with this request please contact me through the email link provided at the bottom of the page. Thank you.