CITY COMMITTEE NIXES THE NEEDLE EXCHANGE

A three-month trial aimed at delivering health-care support and services
through the Penticton Outreach Centre should not include a needle exchange,
a city committee recommends.

The social development advisory committee recommends council support in
principle the community outreach project, but exclude the needle exchange
component.

The committee's recommendation follows a meeting Thursday between city
staff, Interior Health staff, parents and the manager of the Penticton
Early Childhood Centre.

The Penticton Outreach Centre is not the right location for the needle
exchange with the daycare next door, said committee member Jeanette Wood.
Dropping the needle exchange component from the trial aimed at helping
people who currently lack access to traditional health care makes the
project more "palatable" to council, said Wood.

"We have to start somewhere," she said.

The needle exchange, said Wood, could still go ahead somewhere else under a
related recommendation. It asks that the city and the Regional District of
Okanagan Similkameen help Interior Health find the best location for the
needle exchange within the South Okanagan.

"The right location has to be downtown (Penticton) because that is where
those people are," she said.

Dawn Offerein, manager of the daycare centre, is pleased with the
committee's recommendation.

"That makes it much easier for me to swallow, knowing that the needle
exchange program won't be happening right beside the daycare," she said,
adding that parents will be relieved.

Council's committee of the whole is expected to deal with the
recommendation next month.

A spokesperson for Interior Health did not return calls seeking comment.