Sidney Vo: "I am standing up not just for myself, but for the community..."

LiverWELL

Sidney Vo is appealing a Federal Government decision, based on her hepatitis B status, that means she and her 12-year-old son Billy have to leave Australia by the end of the month. Her case has been widely publicised and by mid-September an online petition of support had received over 22,000 signatures. Sidney’s experience has galvanised her to speak out. She signed up to become a Hepatitis Victoria HEPSpeaker and stepped out of training to record a short Hepatitis Victoria podcast. Sidney speaks about her situation and in particular the unexpected stigma and discrimination she has experienced since going public. “Its not fair for people like us to get discriminated against,” she says. “We didn’t choose to have this disease -I call it an ailment- it’s not serious if we take care of it, and what we need is more people to take the test.” Only 7% of people living with hepatitis B in Australia are getting treated while the other 93% of people “…are hiding maybe because of the stigma and discrimination, they don’t want to tell doctors they have hepatitis B.” “I feel like a victim of old-fashioned guidelines…” Sidney says. “It's not only myself, after I went public I was contacted by people who are now overseas who say they had the same situation but left Australian with talking about it, maybe because of the stigma. “If every chose to pack up and go who would be the one to stand up for us? I am doing this not just for myself but for the hepatitis B community.”