Opinion: Closing Alberta harm-reduction hubs is going backwards
In 2018, a middle-aged man arrived on my patient panel. I will call him Jon. Jon was being treated in our clinic for hepatitis C but did not yet have his own family physician. When I met with him for our first visit, he told me the story of how he had contracted, years prior while incarcerated, this chronic viral infection of the liver. Supplies for tattoos and drug use were contraband at the time, so he and other inmates had shared needles and syringes.
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By the mid-1990s, studies were advancing our understanding of harm reduction. Based on growing scientific evidence, Canada began to implement programs that were known then as needle exchanges and have since evolved into low-barrier, wraparound services.
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Many today think of harm reduction as being about drug use only — supervised consumption sites for example. But harm reduction is nothing new. It was historically integral to the HIV/AIDS movement of the late 1980s and early '90s, when communities of men who have sex with men and people who use drugs (PWUD) demanded access to care that helped them reduce their risk of disease transmission.
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It worked. Today's modern care includes a whole spectrum of public health interventions that sharply decrease the risk of sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections (STBBI). These include things as simple as access to condoms or new syringes. The gold standard is to provide these on demand. Anything less, like having to exchange your used syringe for a new one, increases infections.
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In Alberta, harm-reduction services are often co-located with primary health care, including pregnancy and wound care as well as treatment for substance use and other mental health disorders. These centres are resource hubs for people who find themselves in the most painful of life's trying moments. Red Deer's Turning Point Society, founded in 1988 in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, is the only resource of this kind in all of central Alberta.
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This week, it was announced that all provincial funding for Turning Point will be discontinued on Nov. 1.
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What will closures like this mean for Albertans? Without access to wraparound services that include best harm-reduction practices, blood-borne and sexually transmitted infections including hepatitis, HIV, gonorrhea, chlamydia and syphilis will rise. Hospital use and costs will also increase due to more skin, organ and bone infections, more ICU stays, and even amputations. The cost of infections like these is a high price to pay compared to a harm-reduction kit that costs around a dollar.
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Edmonton Journal
15 hours ago
- Edmonton Journal
Opinion: Closing Alberta harm-reduction hubs is going backwards
Article content In 2018, a middle-aged man arrived on my patient panel. I will call him Jon. Jon was being treated in our clinic for hepatitis C but did not yet have his own family physician. When I met with him for our first visit, he told me the story of how he had contracted, years prior while incarcerated, this chronic viral infection of the liver. Supplies for tattoos and drug use were contraband at the time, so he and other inmates had shared needles and syringes. Article content Article content By the mid-1990s, studies were advancing our understanding of harm reduction. Based on growing scientific evidence, Canada began to implement programs that were known then as needle exchanges and have since evolved into low-barrier, wraparound services. Article content Article content Many today think of harm reduction as being about drug use only — supervised consumption sites for example. But harm reduction is nothing new. It was historically integral to the HIV/AIDS movement of the late 1980s and early '90s, when communities of men who have sex with men and people who use drugs (PWUD) demanded access to care that helped them reduce their risk of disease transmission. Article content It worked. Today's modern care includes a whole spectrum of public health interventions that sharply decrease the risk of sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections (STBBI). These include things as simple as access to condoms or new syringes. The gold standard is to provide these on demand. Anything less, like having to exchange your used syringe for a new one, increases infections. Article content Article content In Alberta, harm-reduction services are often co-located with primary health care, including pregnancy and wound care as well as treatment for substance use and other mental health disorders. These centres are resource hubs for people who find themselves in the most painful of life's trying moments. Red Deer's Turning Point Society, founded in 1988 in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, is the only resource of this kind in all of central Alberta. Article content This week, it was announced that all provincial funding for Turning Point will be discontinued on Nov. 1. Article content What will closures like this mean for Albertans? Without access to wraparound services that include best harm-reduction practices, blood-borne and sexually transmitted infections including hepatitis, HIV, gonorrhea, chlamydia and syphilis will rise. Hospital use and costs will also increase due to more skin, organ and bone infections, more ICU stays, and even amputations. The cost of infections like these is a high price to pay compared to a harm-reduction kit that costs around a dollar.
CBC
21 hours ago
- CBC
Province set to pull funding for Red Deer harm reduction non-profit
A non-profit harm reduction agency in Red Deer says its future may be in jeopardy after the province decided to pull its grant funding. Turning Point Society told CBC that the grant funding accounted for the majority of its yearly budget. The society previously operated an overdose prevention site in Red Deer, until Alberta Health Services took over the site in 2023. The site closed earlier this year. Red Deer Coun. Cindy Jefferies has concerns about what the funding cut will mean for the city's most vulnerable people. "I think there's a misperception that if we stop funding services like Turning Point, that untreated and uncared for, vulnerable people will simply magically disappear," she said in an interview. "We know for sure that that's not true if we take those services away. People need some place to go. Where will they go is my next question." Turning Point provides more than just harm-reduction services. Coun. Jefferies highlighted the vital role of Turning Point's outreach initiatives, such as the women's program, which offers education on pregnancy and parenting, alongside case management support for vulnerable women facing poverty and homelessness,. The women's program is one of the four programs that will be axed as part of the funding cuts, Turning Point Society said in a Facebook post. "Particularly because it's winter time coming up, just because the service goes away doesn't mean the need doesn't continue to exist," said Jefferies. "Will it spill over into our streets, into our downtown core, into our park system throughout the community? Perhaps, and most likely, it will." The Ministry of Primary and Preventative Health Services told CBC in a statement, that it would transfer resources to other providers as part of its health system refocusing. It said the government would explore alternative delivery models to provide care. "A comprehensive transition plan will be established within the upcoming weeks to minimize service disruptions and ensure a smooth transfer to alternate providers, maintaining continuity of care," reads the statement sent Thursday. The province that it would pull funding for Turning Pont on Nov. 1 Lorian Hardcastle, a professor at the University of Calgary who specializes in health law and policy around health care, said she's concerned that the province is getting too involved in addictions treatment. "The evidence supports having a variety of different options available, embracing harm reduction, safe consumption, meeting people where they are," she said. "So you have all of these other options that exist, but the government is really single-handedly and quite narrowly pursuing recovery-based options at the expense of some of these other evidence-based alternatives." She said by cancelling funding for these services, more people will fall through the cracks, compounding an already overburdened health-care system in the province. She also noted that Red Deer serves other rural communities in central Alberta. "I think that they need to work with this organization to figure out exactly the services and programs that it's currently providing, how heavily those services and programs are used, who else is currently providing them and allocate funding accordingly," she said.
Calgary Herald
a day ago
- Calgary Herald
HSAA and Alberta government reach tentative new labour deal
Article content The union representing more than 22,000 health professionals has reached a new labour deal after close to a year-and-a-half of bargaining. Article content The Health Sciences Association of Alberta (HSAA) announced the tentative agreement late Thursday afternoon. Article content Article content The union says it includes improvements to wages and working conditions for its members who include paramedics, diagnostic imaging specialists, mental health and addiction counsellors, social workers, respiratory therapists, pharmacists, and dietitians, among other professions. Article content Article content The HSAA says members employed by Alberta Health Services, Acute Care Alberta, Recovery Alberta, Primary Care Alberta, Assisted Living Alberta, Lamont Health Care Centre, and Bethany Nursing Home of Camrose will vote on the agreement from Aug. 28 to Sept. 10. Article content Article content 'Our members are there for Albertans from the first call for help to diagnosis, treatment and recovery. They work short-staffed under extreme pressures, and they deserve recognition for the essential care they provide each and every day,' HSAA president Mike Parker said in a news release. Article content 'While this agreement doesn't include everything we wanted, it does reflect some of the priorities our members have been seeking, including higher wages and improved benefits.' The union says the tentative deal includes a 12 per cent base wage increase that encompasses three per cent retroactive raises for 2024 and 2025 as well as further three per cent raises in 2026 and 2027. Article content Article content It adds that approximately 19 per cent of members will see immediate market salary adjustments including a just over eight per cent raise for primary care paramedics and emergency communication officers; a four per cent increase for advanced-care paramedics, public education officers, and clinical supervisors; and six per cent raise for psychologists. Article content The HSAA also cited what it described as 'meaningful increases' to on-call premiums, preceptor pay, long-service pay, travel and meal expenses, and professional fee reimbursement as well as improved benefits and rules around leaves of absences. Article content The tentative deal also includes a $54-million investment by the province into the Rural Capacity Investment Fund to increase retention and recruitment of professionals. Article content In 2022, HSAA members voted to ratify a labour deal that included a 4.25 per cent pay increase. That deal ran between April 1, 2020 and March 31 of last year.
