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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Politics
Natasha May Health reporter

‘Changed my life’: hepatitis treatment offers hope but not enough receiving care, report finds

David Clune sitting in a hospital chair
David Clune is one of 300,000 people in Australia who live with hepatitis B and C. Photograph: Hepatitis Australia

In 1989 David Clune was a young dad with four children when he was diagnosed with hepatitis B and C. Being told he wouldn’t get to see them grow up “was like a spear went through my heart”, he remembers.

Clune is not sure how he contracted the virus. However, entering state care in New Zealand at the age of 10, he experienced abuse and neglect as he was cycled through eight different homes, three youth detention centres, one adult remand centre and a psychiatric hospital, and was exposed to shared needles for tattooing and drugs.

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