Pubdate: Wed, 29 Nov 2006
Source: Chronicle Herald (CN NS)
Copyright: 2006 The Halifax Herald Limited
Contact:  http://thechronicleherald.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/180
Author: Robyn Young

A SAFE HAVEN FOR ADDICTS

Injection Sites Needed in Halifax, Health Worker Says

A row of gleaming, stainless steel booths sit in a sterile room where 
addicts can safely inject their drug of choice.

This is North America's first legal, supervised injection site.

Dr. Michael V. O'Shaughnessy shared slides and stories about the 
Vancouver facility, Insite, with a small group of health 
professionals and AIDS activists in Halifax on Monday.

"After they inject, they hang around, have a coffee; we have to make 
sure they come down a bit before they leave," he said in the meeting 
room at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.

In September, Health Minister Tony Clement gave permission for the 
facility to stay open one more year for further research.

Dianne Bailey, program director at Mainline Needle Exchange, said a 
safe injection site is needed in Halifax.

"(With) the amount of needles that we're picking up out in the street 
and the number of people in the warmer months that are kind of living 
out around the streets in abandoned buildings,   I definitely think 
we do, maybe not on the same scale as Vancouver, but definitely 
something's needed."

She is concerned because groups using the needle exchange program 
have changed in recent years.

"The clients are a lot younger, more street involved, more people 
(are) HIV positive (and) hepatitis C positive than there were when we 
first opened in '92."

Ms. Bailey would not provide statistics on the number of people using 
the needle exchange program in Halifax. However in 2004, the 
provincial outreach co-ordinator for Mainline told The Chronicle 
Herald the program served 60 to 100 users each day.

Ms. Bailey said a facility like Insite could act as a doorway to 
other services, such as addiction counselling, detoxification 
programs and general health care.

A main goal of Insite is to reduce the spread of diseases like AIDS 
and hepatitis C, transmitted through needle-sharing.

Dr. O'Shaughnessy said this is difficult to determine because so many 
addicts are already HIV positive, but those who use Insite don't share needles.

"It has pretty much eliminated (the) second-on-the-needle phenomenon."

Safe injection sites are an important piece of a very complicated 
puzzle, said Susan Kirkland, principle investigator for the Atlantic 
Interdisciplinary Research Network.

The group is researching social and behavioural issues involving 
those with hepatitis C and HIV/AIDS.

For now, she said, Halifax will have to rely on Mainline Needle 
Exchange on Cornwallis Street and the methadone clinic on Gottingen 
Street to manage the spread of disease through needle-sharing.

"Given that the Vancouver site is very much a test site and the 
federal government's made it clear that there are to be no further 
licences, at this point I don't think that's something that's being 
explored in the Maritimes," she said, referring to the possibility of 
a safe injection site.

Despite that, she noted that the number of HIV infections in Nova 
Scotia and P.E.I almost doubled between 2002 and 2004.
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MAP posted-by: Elaine