The latest Canadian guidelines for family physicians are saying that residents who are considered as being healthy and who don’t have risk factors for hepatitis C infection will not be required to be screened for it. However, many might not know this but hepatitis C will infect people for 30 years and affect the liver along the way. In addition, surveys are showing that 6 to 7 per 1,000 Canadian adults are more than likely to have the virus in their blood.
New Healthcare Guideline
Dr. Roland Grad who is the chair of the working group who created the new guidelines has stated that the general population who doesn’t present any sign of hepatitis C should avoid screening for it. The reason why Dr. Roland Grad has helped create the new guideline is because he believes screenings will actually put the general population at risk of getting hepatitis C.
Additionally, Dr. Roland Grad stated the following when asked about the new guideline he has enforced: “The reasons for this recommendation include basically we found no evidence to support the benefits of screening in the adult general population”. He also added the following: “We found the cost of screening and treatment would have a dramatic impact on our health-care budget because the drugs are extraordinary expensive”. From the looks of it, the new guideline is looking to avoid spending additional amounts of money.
Cost of Treatment
If the general Canadian adult population would go into screening for hepatitis C, almost every one of them would be automatically set in queue to see liver specialists. In order to get the entire population checked at specialists, the health-care budget will go down with $1.5 billion. To avoid this, Dr. Roland Grad has proposed that local family physicians and nurse practitioners should follow recommendations from the Public Health Agency of Canada.
The aforementioned recommendations will help physicians and nurses to spot out hepatitis C. Last but not least, we need to let readers know that hepatitis C can be easily transmitted through different ways such as inadequately sterilized medical equipment, injection drug use and sexual contact.
