If you are looking for insights into the Hepatitis ACT team, start with their wish list, which spans the gamut from the sublime to the ridiculous. Smruti wants to eliminate laundry (surely many of us would endorse this wholeheartedly). Rachel wants to violently eradicate bamboo cutlery and has thoughts to share with their inventor ("it's a curse on modern society"). Bryce wants to solve homelessness, because feeling safe in a home is a basic human right. And Joe just wants a shorter commute. Together, these four answers help us know something fundamental about this team. They are deeply serious about the things that matter — dignity, access, and the belief that every person deserves to be treated with respect, regardless of their circumstances — and an absolute refusal to take itself too seriously about everything else.
Hepatitis ACT has been part of the Australian Hep C Point-of-Care Testing program for around three years, and the team that this community organisation have built to provide testing in the nation's capital reflects a clear set of values: that hepatitis C care should be accessible, non-judgmental, and human. They laugh frequently; apparently, the cake is exceptional, and they have a commitment to the people they serve that runs through everything.
Through close partnerships with the Canberra Alliance for Harm Minimisation and Advocacy (CAHMA) and ACT Justice Health, Hepatitis ACT provides point-of-care hepatitis C testing across the community and in corrections. It's a model designed around the understanding that accessible testing means meeting people where they are.
Let's introduce some of the team
At the helm is Kareen Tait, Executive Officer, who brings three decades of experience across health and community services in Australia and abroad — from the NHS in London to harm reduction leadership roles closer to home. At Hepatitis ACT, Kareen supports the Needle and Syringe Program and facilitates access to hepatitis C testing and education. Her colleagues say it best: Bryce names her as his work hero — "nothing fazes Kareen, she cares deeply about the people she works with" — and Joe credits her with bringing homemade cakes to the team. Between the two tributes, a portrait emerges of someone who is simultaneously the steadiest person in the room and the reason the room smells like something good is in the oven.
Sav Gollapally, Programs Manager, brings a background spanning clinical pharmacy, public health, and business leadership to the strategic side of Hepatitis ACT's work. With a PharmD, an MBA, and an MPH, he combines deep healthcare expertise with a commitment to building high-performing, community-focused teams — and Joe notes a shared appreciation of dad jokes, which may or may not be listed in the position description.
Smruti Raj is Project Officer for Hepatitis Testing and Education, and has been with Hepatitis ACT for three and a half years. Holding a Master of Public Health and experience delivering outreach across Victoria, the NT, and the ACT, she leads health education that is clear, respectful, and tailored to community needs. She is also a certified Point-of-Care hepatitis C tester. Before joining, she worked in an Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation in a remote NT town — experience that shaped her understanding of what accessible, stigma-free care looks like in practice. What keeps her here is the goal itself: viral hepatitis elimination. "I would love to witness it," she says, and there is nothing throwaway about that ambition.
Rachel Mills came to the role of Community Hepatitis Educator after what she describes as a period of 'pretending to be retired' — a lot of coffee, a lot of lunches. Her hero: RuPaul, on the basis that most situations in life can be navigated by the principle of 'don't f*** it up' — a philosophy that transfers surprisingly well to community health. Though she has since moved on from the role, her contribution to the team — and possibly her views on bamboo cutlery — remain part of the team's story.
Bryce Jarvis is a Peer Support Worker, who has been with Hepatitis ACT for about a year. With a Certificate IV in Alcohol and Other Drugs and extensive experience in peer-based work across harm reduction settings including CAHMA, Directions Health Services, and CANTEST, he brings something no amount of clinical training can replicate — lived experience, and the trust that comes with it. His wish to solve homelessness reflects something at the centre of how he understands the people he works with — that health, dignity, and housing are not separate problems, and that someone who doesn't feel safe where they sleep is carrying a burden that no finger prick test alone can lift. It's this understanding that makes peer work so powerful: Bryce walks alongside people, meeting them in the full complexity of their circumstances. 
Joe Pearson is the Community Outreach Nurse, just over a year into the role. His path to hepatitis nursing ran through haematology, oncology, Australian Red Cross Lifeblood, and NHS Blood and Transplant in the UK — "haematology nursing is in my blood". His hero is NRL legend Darren Lockyer — not for the trophies, but for the profound respect Lockyer shows everyone he meets, from the random person on the street to the CEO of a major organisation. For Joe, that's not just an admirable quality; it's a philosophy. In outreach nursing, the ability to show up for every person — regardless of their circumstances, their history, or how the day is going — with the same dignity and genuine attention is the work. It is what makes the difference between a service someone accesses and one they trust.
What point-of-care means on the ground
Ask this team what point-of-care testing has meant for the people they work with, and the answers circle around the same themes: dignity, accessibility, and the removal of barriers that used to make treatment feel out of reach.
People can now be tested and treated in an environment free of judgement, where treatment is achievable with support. Bryce explains that what stays with the clients is not just the result, but the feeling of being treated with dignity and respect, and of having someone walk alongside them through their treatment journey. For people who may have spent years navigating systems that made them feel like a problem to be managed, that experience of being genuinely seen and supported is itself a form of care.
The team has seen that a growing proportion of their service users now understand how easy, quick, and accessible POCT is — and that awareness itself is part of the shift. Joe still finds, though, that many clients are simply surprised by what's on offer and how convenient the whole process is. Same-day testing, same-day treatment pathways: for many people accessing Hepatitis ACT's services, it can be the difference between receiving care and not.
Their advice for getting started
The team's advice for anyone starting out or scaling up POCT is worth paying close attention to. Practical and considered, Bryce advises that gravity is your friend and encourages clients to drink plenty of water before testing — it makes the finger prick significantly easier. Joe adds a complementary note: always check a client's finger for calluses before choosing a lancet, as some fingers need a larger one to get a good sample.
Rachel's contribution was more philosophical but equally valuable — don't stress, the world won't end if you make a mistake. "Ask questions", because you are surrounded by a wealth of knowledge. Smruti, reflecting on the early days, echoes this: it may look overwhelming at first, but find your own pace and your own way. You will get there.
The glue holding it all together
This team runs on snacks (Kareen's cakes, Smruti's chai, Joe's Milo), shared humour, and a genuine belief in what they are doing. What they couldn't work without, beyond the GeneXpert and INSTI kits, is each other. The willingness to step in and the support that they give to one another makes this small team so solid.
Smruti says it best: together, they can make everything and anything happen at Hepatitis ACT. Every team member plays a crucial part.