Wednesday 29 July 2015

700 Silent Voices

Another World Hepatitis Day passes us by, same old same old ! A handful of people sharing posts, a few retweets, a couple of likes, the odd fav. Out of 700 people that are connected to me here on Twitter, 80% of which, are involved in one drug and alcohol org or another... 'Advocates !'


I can understand folks not bothering with my stuff, when someone bangs on and on about a certain subject, it can be a turn off, I get that, but from my own observations there is absolutely no sense of the Drug and Alcohol community uniting on this crucial day, a day which in my opinion, addresses the biggest harm reduction issue facing addicts and their families


Addaction, has been involved with testing service users for a while now and I praise them for that. Drug and alcohol services are the front line, the obvious place to help people come to terms with the possibility of hepatitis. Scotland seems well ahead of the UK on this score, with talk of pharmacy's offering hep c testing as well as lots of in-house testing for service users.


Its a very delicate subject, no doubt, nobody wants to be the bearer of such bad news, D&A are about the business of drugs and alcohol and all the issues this encompasses, so let the hospitals deal with hep c detection ? We need a tailored hybrid services to face this viral epidemic in my opinion, we also need drug companies to start putting people before profit, because of such companies hospitals are no longer in a position to offer everyone treatment, even if we could get everyone tested only a handful would qualify for these expensive drugs, its disgraceful, its the perfect storm !


Does this mean we might as well give up, does it fuck ! If the people involved in the drug and alcohol sector, wont grasp the nettle, then who the hell will ?


Peace

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