Pubdate: Sat, 14 Aug 1999
Source: British Medical Journal (UK)
Copyright: 1999 by the British Medical Journal.
Contact:  http://www.bmj.com/
Author: Christopher Zinn

NUNS TO RUN FIRST HEROIN INJECTING ROOM

Nuns who run one of Australia's best known hospitals are to operate
the country's first legal and medically supervised heroin injecting
room after a radical overhaul of the drug laws in New South Wales. The
18 month trial will be administered by the Sisters of Charity, who
also run Sydney's inner city St Vincent's Hospital.

An estimated 50000 visits a year by drug users are expected at the
centre, which will be staffed by a medical supervisor, a registered
nurse, and security staff.

The controversial plan will include the provision of clean needles and
syringes; users must supply their own drugs.

They will be encouraged to seek counselling and treatment for their
habit.

Dr Tina Clifton, the chief executive of the Sisters of Charity Health
Service, said that, although she was in "uncharted waters," the scheme
supports the sisters' commitment to the preservation of life by moving
drug taking from the streets and into a safe environment.

"We've done a lot of work in trying to establish our position; we've
reflected on our code of ethics and our traditional Catholic moral
teachings," she said. The room will also have a coffee bar, subsidised
cafeteria, and perhaps even showers and clean clothes for those in
desperate need, said Dr Alex Wodak, who heads St Vincent's Hospital's
drug and alcohol programme.

Dr Wodak, who has studied injecting rooms in the United States and
Europe, said that the security guards were necessary to maintain order
and stop drug dealers entering the premises, which will be open for
seven hours a day, seven days a week in the Kings Cross red light district.

The New South Wales state government's decision to go ahead was
welcomed by many in the medical field.

Leading immunologist Professor Ron Penny called it one of the most
outstanding advances in public health in the drugs debate for 20 years.

He said that it would not just help to control the spread of HIV in
injecting drug users:

"The overall community will reap enormous rewards from, on one hand,
preventing drug use, and, on the other, providing a socially just
approach that gives more care and treatment, more attention and
rehabilitation to drug users inside and outside jail." The state
premier, Bob Carr, has also announced that a caution instead of a
penalty system would apply for those caught with small amounts of
heroin, cocaine, cannabis, amphetamines, and ecstasy in a raft of
changes that flowed from a drugs summit held last May. But the leader
of the New South Wales opposition, Mrs Kerry Chikarovski, was strongly
opposed to the trial. "I am still concerned about the message sent to
children that injecting drugs can be seen as safe."
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