Southern Health-Santé Sud is rolling out a harm reduction program to help prevent new hepatitis C and HIV infections.
    
Harm reduction programs are nothing new for the RHA, as they have focused on a number of other areas, like condom distribution, sleep education related to babies, and bike helmet safety.
    
Stephanie Verhoeven is a regional director for Public Health - Healthy Living.  She said their harm reduction approach is now expanding to provide clean and sterile supplies for people who are using intravenous drugs.

"The needle and supply distribution program is helpful in modifying many risk-related practices of injection drug use, for example reusing and sharing needles. This program reduces the spread of blood-borne illnesses such as HIV and hepatitis C."

Verhoeven said the rest of the province and country has also been moving this way in harm reduction efforts.  She said it's part of public recognition and acknowledgment of the realities of drug use, and the health system wanting to be responsive to that in seeking to reduce negative impacts related to drug use.
    
A key piece of the program is to engage with people with health needs who might not have regular interaction with the health care system.  "Sometimes people who are using intravenous drugs may end up in the emergency room if they end up with a bad infection or an overdose, but we are wanting to be there for people more in their day to day lives," said Verhoeven.  She said it's really about using a non-judgmental approach.  "So encouraging people to come to us, and we won't judge their drug use, but we'll meet them where they're at and connect them to other resources."

If being connected to various resources is something a person would want, and they are ready for it, Verhoeven said they will guide them to those resources.  That can be anything from getting testing, medical treatment, referrals to mental health, housing, and employment.  "So really working with the person and what their needs are to support them in their day to day lives."

As for what the true number of new HIV infections are per year in the region, Verhoeven said it's difficult to say because it relates so much to whether people are tested.  She said if more people are tested in a year, rates will often look higher, and if people don't get tested as much, rates decline.  "So it's difficult to know exactly, but for HIV, provincially there's been a slight increase, and for us regionally in southern a slight decrease in diagnosis."

Verhoeven said what they do know is, for people who are using injection drugs, for them the risk of infection is significantly higher than for those that don't, and that's why they are reaching out to these people and believe it's an important public health initiative.

The Sterile Needle & Supply Distribution Program is provided within each of the Southern Health-Santé Sud public health offices, including support for sterile needle and supply distribution as well as used-needle drop-off.