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Prison needle exchange programs needed to curb community health risks
26 October 2010.
Australia’s rising HIV rates confirm the need to establish controlled sterile needle and syringe programs (NSPs) in prisons as called for in critical national health strategies, the Australian Drugs Conference was told today.
Australian Medical Association Councillor and AMA Victorian President Dr Harry Hemley launched a paper calling on state and territory governments to identify sites for trials of in-prison NSPs.
The paper was written by Anex which convenes the Harm Minimisation in Prisons Committee. The paper demonstrates that international experience with in-prison NSPs demonstrates they pose no health and safety risk to prison staff.
"Needle exchange programs in the wider community have significantly reduced the spread of HIV and hepatitis C, but detainees are still being denied access to safe injecting equipment," said Dr Hemley.
"Prisoners deserve access to quality health care while incarcerated, and this includes access to a needle exchange program," he said.
"Most prisoners will join the wider community on release, so reducing the spread of blood borne viruses in prisons will also impact on transmission in the wider population," said Dr Hemley.
Anex CEO Mr John Ryan the latest HIV surveillance report released last week showed that more needs to be done to prevent blood borne virus transmission, including amongst drug users in prisons.
"Australian health programs have successfully slashed needle sharing rates in the community, but prisoners have little choice but to share because successful harm reduction measures are banned inside," Mr Ryan said.
Mr Ryan, who is CEO of Melbourne-based drug policy and research group Anex, said the time is right to begin implementation of programs across the country.
"Needle and syringe programs operate in most parts of Australia and have proved what a remarkable difference access to clean needles can make to the health of drug users and the broader community," he said.
"It’s now time to move this sensible and successful policy into prisons, where despite significant efforts to control illicit drug use within prison walls the evidence is that prisoners do use drugs and do share needles," said Mr Ryan.
"This poses not only an immediate risk to the prisoner and drug user, but upon release they risk spreading HIV and Hepatitis C into the general community.
"Injecting drug use in prisons is threatening the safety of the general community because of the absence of programs to curb needle sharing inside. Prisons have become the final frontier in efforts to minimise the harm caused by injecting drug use.
"The recommendation to identify places to trial NSPs in prison has been endorsed by all state governments and the Federal government. But, to date there has not been a single program put in place for what is a significant oversight in policies to curb the threat of blood borne viruses," Mr Ryan said.
He said the statistics were disturbing:
- The Australian Bureau of Statistics documents that from 1994 to 2007 the single largest type of first offence leading to imprisonment was for using illegal drugs;
- The 2009 NSW Inmate Health Survey found 97 per cent of those who injected in prison had shared a needle on their most recent occasion of injecting. Seventeen per cent reported that six or more people had shared the needle/syringe before they used it, while a quarter of men and a third of women did not know how many people had injected with the equipment before they did.
"This is an unacceptable situation that risks the health of the whole community," he said.
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