Hepatitis testing offered at event
Welland’s Market Square was filled with information about hepatitis on Thursday.
The event was put on by the Niagara Health Hepatitis C Care Clinic in an effort to bring awareness to the issues and resources for the virus. Brenda Yeandle, manager of the health system’s addictions programs, said the clinic and community partners came together to let people know what options they have.
The event featured information tables set up by the different organizations, some food and entertainment and even a free, confidential, testing.
“We are able to offer people the opportunity to get tested, which we feel is very important,” she said. “Over 44 per cent of people that have hep C are unaware they have the disease.”
Carrie Honsinger, from Port Colborne, was among that percentage. She said she found out she had the virus through a registered letter in the mail after donating some blood to the Red Cross.
“I wasn’t too happy to find out through a letter,” she said. “I had no idea what hep C meant, and it’s a really bad thing to Google.”
She went to her family doctor to get a second test done and when that also came back positive, they started trying to figure out how she got it.
The thing is, Honsinger didn’t fit into any of the usual parametres they look for. She’s not into drugs, didn’t have a transfusion in that time period, or fit into any of the other lifestyle factors that are looked at.
“It’s basically I don’t know how I got this virus. I pretty much now really don’t care,” she said.
When Honsinger first learned she had the virus, she said she developed anxiety, depression and paranoia. She was afraid of passing it on to other people, especially her children.
“I just double thought everything I did,” she said.
She said the Care Clinic helped her through a lot of that by steering her toward resources such as peer support. For her, it was great to hear other people’s perspectives on what it’s like to go through diagnosis and treatment. Now, she offers peer support to others who are where she was.
Just over a year ago, she was cured of hepatitis C after a treatment that had her taking numerous pills and injections.
There have been advances made in the treatment of the illness since she’s been cured, so most people who have it won’t have to take on what she did.
Events such as the one the clinic held in Welland lets people know about things like that, as well as what to be aware of.
“It is blood-to-blood transferred,” Honsinger said. “I don’t necessarily want to say it’s easy to get, but it’s not that hard.”
“Getting tested prevents the spread of hepatitis,” Yeandle said. “There is treatment. There is a cure for this.”
She said the Hepatitis C Care Clinic serves all of Niagara and has clinics in Port Colborne, Welland, Niagara Falls, St. Catharines and Fort Erie.