USED NEEDLE SCARE FOR CITY FATHER

He'll Be Tested For HIV, Hepatitis After Stepping On Piece Of Discarded Syringe

EDMONTON - In the past year, Nicholas Hermansen has complained
repeatedly to police and health officials that drug users are
littering his Boyle McCauley neighbourhood with discarded needles.

Now the 34-year-old electrician and father of two needs a series of
blood tests for hepatitis and HIV after he stepped on a broken needle
tip in his back yard about a week ago.

"Every time you think about it, your stomach gets butterflies. You
just have to be logical and think about the fact that the chance of
catching something is very, very remote," he said Saturday.

Hermansen had returned home from work Aug. 3 when he stepped out his
back door in his socks to go to his garage. As he walked across a
concrete pad, Hermansen felt something poke his foot.

"I didn't think anything of it and then an hour later I went to have
my bath and pulled it out of my heel."

The thin, blackened needle tip was only about an inch long. It
appeared to be old. Hermansen immediately called Capital Health's
link line, where a nurse put him in touch with the health authority's
needle stick program.

"Obviously, there's a problem if you need a whole program for people
accidentally stuck with needles," Hermansen said.

Hermansen went to the Royal Alexandra Hospital that night for blood
tests. The negative results were faxed to the Eastwood Health Centre
the next day, where he received a booster for an earlier hepatitis B
vaccination along with a tetanus shot.

"I have to go back for more tests after three months and after six
months to see if there was anything on the syringe, to see if I
contracted anything."

The dad of two girls, ages four and 22 months, moved his family into
their house on 106A Avenue near 95th Street a year ago. Hermansen
said he sees discarded needles lying around his neighbourhood about
once a week.

"The house beside me was two years in being built, and in the interim
people were going in there and shooting up and doing God knows what
else, so I assume that's where it came from."

He has already told his kids never to touch needles, but he is
worried for other young families moving into the area.

Hermansen thinks a needle-exchange program that hands out and
collects syringes for injection drug users is only making matters worse.

The Boyle McCauley Health Centre, at 10628 96 St., is one of five
fixed sites for the Streetworks program that runs the needle exchange.

"They say it's a needle exchange, but obviously there's something
wrong with the math or the equation or there's another source (for
needles) they're not talking about because they end up on the
streets," Hermansen said.

Dr. Gerry Predy, medical officer of health for Capital Health, said
the Streetworks program sometimes collects more needles than it hands
out, but users of illicit drugs get needles from other sources. Predy
said Streetworks educates people about proper needle disposal and
provides several safe-disposal boxes around the inner city to keep
needles off the street.

"It's a way of having better control over the discarding of needles,"
he said. "But like other forms of litter, some of them get discarded
in ways that are not appropriate.

"It's an issue I don't think is caused by the needle exchange program."

Streetworks manager Marliss Taylor said the program distributed about
680,000 needles last year within about a 25-block area in the inner city.

Instead of handing out needles to drug users, health officials should
set up a safe-injection site where users are supervised while they
shoot up so needles never make it out the door, Hermansen said.

"They can hope someone throws a needle out (safely) all they want,
but they can't guarantee it."