Rotary joins the fight to ‘End Hepatitis Now’

The Melbourne Rotary Club, one of the most established and influential community organisations in Australia, has joined forces with Hepatitis Victoria/LiverWELL® in a collaboration to raise awareness about the seriousness of liver disease and need to ‘End Hepatitis Now!’

“Rotary has an incredible history of pioneering disease elimination with the work they have done to help eliminate polio has changed the lives of millions of people for the better,” said Hepatitis Victoria/LiverWELL® CEO Melanie Eagle.

 Picture: Neylan Aykut presenting at the Rotary event in Camberwell

“I am delighted that in the coming year our educators and lived experience speakers will present at up to 30 Rotary Clubs in Victoria, speaking to hundreds of people about the need for them to take action to fight viral hepatitis, to get tested, vaccinated and treated.”

Melanie said the scale of the problem and its corrosive impact on health and lives is very poorly understood.

“There are 30,000 Rotarians in Australia, but more than ten times that number of people are living with viral hepatitis, so we must do everything we can to raise awareness,” said Melanie.

The first event -a short presentation and distribution of materials followed by a question and answer session- took place at the Rotary Club in Camberwell on Wednesday 22 January and the second at the Rotary Club Brighton on Thursday 30 January.

HEP Hero, Mark Farmer Award winner for 2018 and lived experience speaker Andree Dolby said she was thrilled by the response of the audience at the ‘kick-off’ event.

“It’s fantastic to have the opportunity to collaborate with Rotary to encourage testing and treatment and to spread the positive message that together we can stop viral hepatitis,” Andree said.

Dr Peter Clark of the Melbourne Rotary Club, who has been instrumental in the Rotary-Hepatitis Victoria/LiverWELL® collaboration said he was very pleased with the first presentations.

“I thought the presentation materials were excellent and their professionalism was clearly evident.  The feedback from all present was very positive,” he said.

“The Rotarians and their guests were clearly interested and asked a variety of questions, with one of the members even interested in becoming a HEP Hero,” Peter said.