I joined the BC Hepatitis Network in late-September, specifically to support the community consultations for the BC Viral Hepatitis Elimination Roadmap and I hope you will join too. The goal of this roadmap is to develop (and implement) recommendations toward a BC free from viral hepatitis.
I had never worked with communities impacted by viral hepatitis, at least not explicitly.
But I do come into this work with experience leading community consultations, and using those spaces as a tool for community building and healing, and self-determined advocacy. One principle I have with any consultations I do is “do your homework.” In other words – don’t go into community spaces asking the same questions that have been asked, and answered, before. Instead, I read reports and watch videos of past consultations to better understand what has been advocated for in the past, and what are the current opportunities and challenges.
With thanks to a supportive project team and colleagues at BCHep, I’ve been able to read and reflect upon a huge amount of information related to viral hepatitis in BC and Canada, and strategies needed to eliminate the disease. Much of this work was previously done on the backs (and minds, and hearts) of people with lived and living experience of viral hepatitis, and I am grateful for their stories and their fierce advocacy in the face of innumerable systemic challenges.
What’s become clear to me is that in many ways, advocates, clinicians, people with lived experience and researchers have laid clear the measures needed to eradicate viral hepatitis in BC. We already know that micro-elimination strategies are highly effective, that increased testing and screening means we can better monitor and treat folks living with hepatitis. Most recently, innovations in hepatitis C drugs (or therapies) have resulted in much more accessible curative treatment. And we also know that in order to eliminate viral hepatitis, we must centre harm reduction and safe supply principles for people who use drugs.
If the strategies and tactics are already known and documented, the question we’re trying to answer isn’t how to eliminate viral hepatitis, but why haven’t we gotten started? Or, ‘if we know how to eliminate viral hepatitis, then why aren’t we doing it?’
What will it take to muster the political, social and cultural will to value lives affected by viral hepatitis, differently than we are now?
One of the many reasons I’m committed to this work is because I have witnessed first-hand the power that can be seized by communities when they are asked how to address complex issues impacting themselves, and their family and friends.
As we plan ahead for the next several months in developing this Roadmap, please consider this as your invitation – as a partner, collaborators and co-conspirator to continue your staunch advocacy, to bang the table ever louder, and to work alongside us to develop a plan that sparks innovation, and imagines a BC free from viral hepatitis.
If you would like your input included in the BC Viral Hepatitis Elimination Roadmap, please contact Joel Harnest at joel [at] bchep.org, and visit HepFreeBC.ca for up-to-date information on events, consultations and engagement opportunities.
Joel Harnest (he/him) is a queer settler living on the unceded lands of Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations since 2013. By trade and by passion, Joel is a facilitator and trusted convenor of anti-oppressive and dialogic spaces in which groups of people can make sense of complex issues impacting their lives, communities, and work. Joel has over 15 years’ experience in adult education, community engagement and group facilitation. Joel works on projects that align with his political and socio-cultural beliefs including queer and gender liberation, destigmatization of mental health and substance use, and anti-racist, decolonizing and anti-capitalist work, through a generous and compassionate trauma-informed lens.
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