HEALTH UNIT COLLECTING MORE DIRTY NEEDLES

Program Highly Successful In 06

The North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit board of directors
learned Wednesday that heroin addicts are finally getting the
message and turning in their dirty needles.

The health unit's decade-old needle exchange program, which gives
addicts clean needles and other drug paraphernalia in exchange for
dirty equipment, reported an 89 per cent return rate on the needles
it gave out in 2006.

That figure, the highest recorded for the health unit, is up
substantially from previous years.

"(The increase) is a result of advocacy from one of our board
members requesting that we look at why, in previous years, there had
been a low return rate," said medical officer of health Dr.

Catherine Whiting, noting the request led front-line staffers to
start encouraging drug users to return their needles.

She said the higher rate of return means "it's less likely that they
(the needles) will be in places where others could come to harm from
exposure to the needles."

The exchange program, which is mandated by the province, has two
components, Whiting said.

The first part of the program is to decrease the transmission of
diseases, particularly blood borne infections, by providing clean
needles for addicts, and discouraging them from using dirty needles.
The second component is to have the dirty needles returned to the
exchange site to be disposed of appropriately.

But board members Daryl Vaillancourt and Judy Koziol, both city
councillors, said they don't support the program because they
believe it encourages drug use.

Following the meeting, Whiting said the program isn't only designed
to provide clean needles and safely dispose of dirty ones. It also
provides counselling to addicts and directs them to other services,
including the local methadone clinic, which helps heroine addicts
kick the habit.

There are three needle exchange sites - at the health unit's
Commercial Street office, the AIDS Committee of North Bay and Area
and the Nipissing Detoxification Centre.

The health unit is looking to expand the program to offer needle
exchanges in Parry Sound and elsewhere in the district.