Your health is our health

LET’S TAKE A LOOK AT THE NEEDLE AND SYRINGE PROGRAM AND WHY IT WORKS.

THE NEEDLE AND SYRINGE PROGRAM (NSP) IS A LEGAL, EVIDENCE-BASED HARM REDUCTION INITIATIVE THAT PROVIDES CLEAN NEEDLES AND SYRINGES TO PEOPLE WHO INJECT DRUGS (PWID), TO REDUCE THE TRANSMISSION OF HIV AND OTHER BLOOD BORNE VIRUSES, SUCH AS HEPATITIS B AND C.

The aim of the program is to minimize harm to individuals and the community, rather than to focus on the drug or to demonise PWID. Its role is to support people to stay healthy, to manage their drug use and to access health, welfare, and other services. PWID come from all walks of life. Some manage their drug use well and live active and engaged lives, while others experience a wide range of challenges. NSPs do not condemn nor condone drug use. They are here to offer safe, professional and confidential service, where people know they can get support if and when they need it.

NSPs have prevented over 30,000 HIV infections and 100,000 Hepatitis C infections. They have saved our national health budget over 2 billion dollars. And if you look at Australia’s rate of HIV amongst PWID, it is 1.7%, compared with 9% in the United States. In medical terms that is a big difference and considered a public health success story. They have also paved the way for our nation to understand health and deal with serious problems like…. pandemics.

Yet, launching the NSP way back in 1988 was a monumental task and at times seemed almost impossible. By the mid 1980’s, the panic of the HIV/AIDS epidemic was in full swing and Homosexual men and PWID were actively being targeted and blamed for the crisis. Infection rates of HIV/AIDS were rapidly increasing and spreading across the country, and doctors argued that as well as safe sex programs, there needed to be prevention programs for PWID.

This was a time when people knew nothing about blood borne viruses. Syringes were sharpened on matchboxes because of their lack of supply. Literally thousands of people were dying or becoming terribly ill. This had a knock-on effect for the people’s lives and our country’s health services. An NSP would allow people the opportunity to protect their own health by providing access to sterile injecting equipment. This would stop the spread among PWID and the general community, while also addressing these terrible sharing practices and alarming rates of hepatitis B and C.

Given the conservative views on drug use and the terror of the virus, the idea of an NSP through the nation into a moral panic, and the issue became nothing short of a 5-star shit fight. The main argument was that the NSP would ‘send the wrong message’ and only encourage more drug use.

As infection rates worsened and after being refused multiple permits for a pilot program, a group of really gutsy Medical professionals set up their own self-funded NSP. Dr Alex Wodak was the director of the Alcohol and Drug Service at Sydney’s St Vincent hospital and he was behind the illegal pilot needle and syringe exchange in the inner-city suburb of Darlinghurst. It was an act of civil disobedience, but it saved lives and force the government to look at the science. The move worked. And to their credit, the Australian Government settled that while they did not agree with PWID, the conceded it was better to reduce the harms associated with drug use, than to take the moral high ground at the nations expense to prove a moral point.

Australia now has one of the world’s lowest rates of HIV among PWID, and the evidence is clear that this success is the result of the early introduction of NSPs. But this small part of our health history could have been a vastly different story. By comparison, the US response to the HIV/AIDS crisis was to name, blame, shame and completely ignore the science.

This decision killed almost a million citizens and had a huge impact on how people understood and valued human life. It’s a shame they didn’t learn from it.