By Christine Kukka
Getting the medical care we need requires advocacy, because in the U.S. the quality of our healthcare–and even how long we live–depends on our income, ethnicity, gender and where we live. That is especially true when we live with hepatitis B.
Many affected by hepatitis B are not endowed with money, privilege or political power. Most of us are immigrants and people of African and Asian descent. This infection illuminates our country’s racial divides in healthcare. Asian-Americans, for example, have liver cancer rates 13-times higher than white Americans because they were never tested for hepatitis B, diagnosed or treated until it was too late.
Many of us are gay or injecting drug users. We are often uninsured or under-insured, which leaves us unable to pay for testing or treatment.
Our doctors, who often work in healthcare systems focused more on the bottom line than patient care, see too many patients in too little time. They may not know to screen us for hepatitis B, or monitor us properly and refer us for treatment when the infection damages our livers.
Despite good intentions, we live with a broken healthcare system and like any political system it requires the actions of patients, voters and advocacy organizations to improve.
The Hepatitis B Foundation and national coalitions including Hep B United are working within the political system to make healthcare more equitable and accountable. They’re fighting to get more funding so the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Health have more resources to eradicate hepatitis B. Recently, these advocates scored a victory. Continue reading "Why Raised Voices, Phone Calls and Letter Writing Are Critical to Eradicate Hepatitis B"