Latest news with #harmreduction
RNZ News
7 hours ago
- Health
- RNZ News
Needle exchange changes: 'It takes time to build up trust'
The Christchurch Needle Exchange at the Rodger Wright Centre. Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon Changes to a decades-long needle exchange contract have left a Christchurch drug-user and health expert worried the decision will breed distrust, potentially leading to needle-sharing. Health NZ has not renewed the contract for DISC Trust, which has operated needle exchange services across the South Island for 35 years and has instead opted for a new provider He Waka Tapu from 30 September. RNZ understands 19 staff are waiting to hear about the future of their jobs, while people who use the service were worried He Waka Tapu might not replicate the "peer-to-peer" approach that made them comfortable using DISC Trust's services. The man, who spoke to RNZ on condition of anonymity, had been using DISC Trust's needle exchange at Christchurch's Rodger Wright Centre for about 10 years. He said DISC Trust staff were knowledgeable and most of them had been drug users themselves. "You're talking to someone who, who really, you know, actually gets it," he said. "There are no ulterior motives. They're not trying to convince you to give up your drugs and go and do treatment. If you want other services or information, you can ask and they'll give you that help, but they're not going to pressure you to go to rehab. "You see people in there who look like they're probably bodybuilders and you see other people that you know are using meth - all sorts of drugs. Whatever you're injecting, that's the place to get your needles from and to get rid of them safely." The man had sought advice about methadone and Hepatitis C treatment and received safe injecting equipment to take methamphetamine and heroin, including getting drugs checked for potency and any unwanted contaminants. DISC Trust also provided advice on overdose prevention and injection techniques that did not lead to tissue damage, he said. The man was concerned He Waka Tapu - a kaupapa Māori health organisation - would not have the same level of impartiality because it also offered a range of rehabilitation and treatment plans. "Just because someone's got the equipment to give out, it doesn't mean that I'm going to trust them. It takes time to build up trust in a service," he said. "I can't imagine, like, doing treatment there and then deciding I'm going to inject some drugs and having to go back to the same place. That would be so embarrassing." Health NZ said the needle exchange contract stipulated that people with "lived and living experience" had significant roles in the design, delivery and leadership of the programme. Needle exchange locations and employment details were still under negotiation, although it was confident there would not be any disruption to services, Health NZ said. When approached for comment, He Waka Tapu referred RNZ to Health NZ, which declined to provide further details. "Health New Zealand is currently negotiating a contract with the preferred provider. It is therefore premature for either Health New Zealand or the provider to respond to your query," Health NZ said. Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon DISC Trust executive director Philippa Jones said it ran six needle exchanges from Nelson to Dunedin and staff had about 30,000 "interactions" with drug users each year. She said the trust was "incredibly surprised and disappointed" to loose its needle exchange contract, but it would continue to provide other services such as HIV screening and vaccinations. "We've built a really deep connection with our communities and that's not something that can be replaced overnight, especially for people who are really stigmatised when they engage with the mainstream health system," she said. "This was a service established by the community of injecting drug users, for them. That's a unique feature of the service and that's how it's able to build that significant trust with clients." Jones said DISC Trust was informed of the contract loss on 16 June and staff were yet to hear from He Waka Tapu. University of Otago Professor Jeff Miller said people might re-use or share needles if they did not feel comfortable with the new service. "So you're moving into physical [tissue] damage and you're also moving into potential increase in exposure to hepatitis C in particular," he said. The loss of DISC Trust's needle exchange contract was "bizarre", he said. "It's a source of huge frustration and a little bit of disbelief to see this particular service, which incidentally is the most effective hepatitis C treating service in the country, apparently disappearing off the map," he said. Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon RNZ understands funding for South Island needle exchange services has been reduced from $1.4 million to $1 million. Health NZ would not confirm the figures and declined RNZ's interview requests. In a statement, it said funding for regional needle exchange and harm reduction services was allocated based on population statistics. "The national budget for the delivery of needle exchange and harm reduction services and free safe injecting equipment is around $6 million per annum," HealthNZ said. Miller said the shift to a population-based approach was new and concerning, because data suggested the South Island had a higher proportion of people who injected drugs than the rest of the country, so deserved a bigger funding share. DISC Trust distributed about 40 percent of the country's sterile drug equipment, despite Te Wai Pounamu having only 23 percent of the country's total population. Know Your Stuff spokeswoman Casey Spearin said her organisation had worked with the trust to provide drug-checking services and she was also concerned abut the change. "It's disappointing to note that the overall funding amount for this service in Te Waipounamu has been scaled back. We have over three decades of evidence showing that needle exchange services reduce the burden of disease and other downstream effects on our health services and save taxpayer money," she said in a statement. "While we are pleased to see that He Waka Tapu provides wraparound support and whānau and tikanga-based approaches, there are likely to be some impacts when transferring needle exchange services to a new provider. "Ideally, He Waka Tapu would have been brought on to complement the existing services provided by DISC and helped provide these vital services to more people who need them." Health NZ said the services would transition to He Waka Tapu over the next two months and it was confident staff would "deliver the required services to people who inject drugs and who live in Te Waipounamu". 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CTV News
2 days ago
- Health
- CTV News
Party safer: Tips for a safe summer party season
If you or someone near you is using drugs, you'll want to know some important safety tips. With summer festival season in full swing and vacations underway, it's party time for thousands of people across Ottawa. Ottawa Public Health has launched a new online tool to help people party safely, especially when alcohol or drugs are involved. 'We know that alcohol and drugs are a part of the festivities and celebration often, too,' Megan Francoeur, with Ottawa Public Health, told CTV Morning Live. 'Just making sure that we're not mixing substances, starting low, going slow, looking out for each other, getting naloxone, making sure that we know how to respond to overdose and intoxication.' includes free online trainings, printable materials, social media tools, and community resources for event goers and event organizers. 'There's resources for event staff and volunteers, free trainings that take 15 minutes with some really practical tips and also resources for parents and guardians to talk about substance use with your teens and also festivalgoers and school students,' said Francoeur. The site has details on commonly used substances like alcohol, cannabis, opioids, and tobacco, along with information on harm reduction and naloxone use, including where to get naloxone kits. Naloxone A naloxone kit is shown in this undated image. (Peter Szperling/CTV News Ottawa) The site also has information on mental health and addictions resources, bystander intervention and violence prevention, and safe sex. 'People are out more and we've been out at special events recently and it's been so nice to see the response from thousands of people coming up, saying they're happy to be doing this type of training and we love to see it when somebody walks by our tent and goes, 'I already have a (naloxone) kit,'' Francoeur said. The free trainings require an Olearn account, which is free to set up, but other resources including tips, information, and links to service providers are freely accessible on the website.
New York Times
4 days ago
- Health
- New York Times
I Was Skeptical of Covid Measures. I Didn't Want This.
In March 2020, I disobeyed an order from the City of San Francisco to close down the H.I.V. clinic where I serve as medical director. I knew that complying with the order, which came as part of the city's stringent Covid-19 lockdown, would have left our poor and homeless patients without anywhere to get treatment. Over the ensuing months, I gained something of a reputation as a so-called Covid contrarian. I argued against closing outdoor parks and beaches and called for reopening schools. My views were based on harm reduction, the principal of fighting the infection while simultaneously taking societal and individual needs into account. I believed that the response to the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States often favored the interests of the wealthy — who could work remotely or send their children to private schools — over the poor and the working class. I hoped that an eventual reckoning with the U.S. response would allow for greater trust in public health. And yet as critical as I was of our health institutions during the pandemic, I am now deeply distressed that the Trump administration is using pandemic failures as justification for a broad assault on health and science institutions. The pandemic laid bare the fact that we needed to reform our health institutions, but what is happening now is not a reckoning but destruction. During the pandemic, the share of Americans who said they did not trust scientists more than doubled, to 27 percent in 2023 from 13 percent before the pandemic in 2019. But the decision last month by the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to fire the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's entire advisory panel on vaccines will make the public — once again — wonder why science cannot be conducted without political interference. The administration says academic freedom was curtailed and dissent silenced during the pandemic. However, Mr. Trump's National Institutes of Health has throttled academic freedom by withholding funding for certain academic institutions, including Harvard, based on ideology. Last month, Mr. Kennedy announced that the United States would withdraw funding for Gavi, the international vaccine organization responsible for saving millions of children's lives around the world, accusing it of stifling free speech during the pandemic. However, Gavi, which has improved access to vaccines for children in the world's poorest countries, was not responsible for the discord in the U.S. pandemic response. The Gavi funding cuts are indicative of a broad U.S. retreat from global health. Perhaps the most troubling example of this retreat is the Trump administration's willingness to risk the lives of hundreds of thousands if not millions of people by crippling the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, a program to combat H.I.V./AIDS that's widely considered one of the most effective global health programs in history. Too often during the pandemic, my fellow left-leaning public health experts supported decisions that weren't grounded in science, such as keeping schools closed longer than necessary or enforcing vaccine mandates way past the time recommended by international agencies. I thought those policies would deepen inequalities. But if school closings hurt the poor more than the wealthy during the pandemic, slashing Medicaid will hurt the poor much more. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
CBS News
7 days ago
- Health
- CBS News
Woman's survival in Baltimore's Penn North overdose spurs recovery push: "Barely clinging to life"
In the aftermath of a mass overdose that hospitalized 27 people in the Penn North neighborhood, one victim spoke out, and drug recovery advocates are adjusting their strategy to reach people in crisis before it's too late. Over the weekend, Sapna Bansil, a journalist with our media partner, The Baltimore Banner, spoke with a woman in her 60s who survived an overdose after unknowingly ingesting a dangerous batch of drugs. The woman described buying heroin on North Avenue Thursday morning, July 10, and receiving a free "tester," a small sample of what turned out to be a potent and potentially lethal substance. According to The Banner, the woman snorted a fragment of a pill "smaller than the head of a match" before beginning to feel dizzy and disoriented. Fearing she might collapse in the street, she made her way to a nearby playground, where she eventually passed out. She was discovered nearly five hours later and transported to Johns Hopkins Hospital after reportedly going into cardiac arrest and receiving multiple doses of Narcan. Now, for the first time in 15 years, she is seeking treatment. Efforts to help residents with recovery Recovery and harm reduction organizations say the mass overdose incident highlights both the urgent need and ongoing efforts to meet individuals where they are. "It's a double-edged sword," said Krystal Drayton, a community resource specialist with King Health Systems. "That same exact day, we had harm reduction on site, handing out test kits and clean syringes. But clearly, for some, it wasn't enough, or it was too late." Drayton, who was in the neighborhood that day, says that while crisis response was swift, ongoing visibility and presence in areas of high drug activity are key. "I would say this is restrengthening what we do, but it's also an eye-opener of the things we can implement more," Drayton said. "Maybe we can have meetings or activities near places like the subway station. You're not going to have drug activity and a therapeutic event happening at the same time." The source of the drug is still under investigation Authorities are still investigating the source of the batch, and community advocates are urging anyone using drugs to seek help and utilize harm reduction tools, including fentanyl test strips and Narcan kits. As the Penn North neighborhood continues to recover from the incident, Drayton hopes the response is not a one-time effort. "They responded to the crisis, which was great," Drayton said. "But I would love to see that more often, not just because an incident happened." The overdose victim, now in recovery, is one of many in Baltimore's ongoing battle with substance abuse. Advocates hope her story will serve as a turning point, not just for her, but for an entire community still searching for healing.
CTV News
13-07-2025
- Health
- CTV News
Safety alert issued at Winnipeg Folk Festival over gel cap mushrooms
The Winnipeg Folk Festival is seen in a file image. Winnipeg Folk Festival's organizers have issued a safety alert after reports of a substance being used by people attending that is causing adverse reactions. According to a media advisory released on Saturday, the festival's site safety and first aid teams are warning attendees to avoid gel cap mushrooms, which may contain 'an additive which can lead to fainting.' Several individuals who experienced symptoms have been treated by on-site medical teams. 'The festival cares deeply about the health and safety of its patrons,' the advisory reads. 'We have many systems and supports in place and invest heavily in safety initiatives.' Organizers advised all participants who choose to use substances to refer to the festival's website for information and resources about harm reduction strategies to reduce the risks. No further details were provided about the number of people affected.
