4.2 Article

Adapting harm reduction services during COVID-19: lessons from the supervised injecting facilities in Australia

期刊

HARM REDUCTION JOURNAL
卷 18, 期 1, 页码 -

出版社

BMC
DOI: 10.1186/s12954-021-00471-x

关键词

Harm reduction; Supervised injecting facilities; Drug consumption rooms; COVID-19; People who inject drugs

资金

  1. National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Investigator Grant [APP1173505]

向作者/读者索取更多资源

The COVID-19 crisis has had profound impacts on health service provision, particularly on supervised injecting facilities and drug consumption rooms. Despite potential risks, two supervised injecting facilities in Australia have remained open during the pandemic, implementing strategies to continue providing services to drug users.
The COVID-19 crisis has had profound impacts on health service provision, particularly those providing client facing services. Supervised injecting facilities and drug consumption rooms across the world have been particularly challenged during the pandemic, as have their client group-people who consume drugs. Several services across Europe and North America closed due to difficulties complying with physical distancing requirements. In contrast, the two supervised injecting facilities in Australia (the Uniting Medically Supervised Injecting Centre-MSIC-in Sydney and the North Richmond Community Health Medically Supervised Injecting Room-MSIR-in Melbourne) remained open (as at the time of writing-December 2020). Both services have implemented a comprehensive range of strategies to continue providing safer injecting spaces as well as communicating crucial health information and facilitating access to ancillary services (such as accommodation) and drug treatment for their clients. This paper documents these strategies and the challenges both services are facing during the pandemic. Remaining open poses potential risks relating to COVID-19 transmission for both staff and clients. However, given the harms associated with closing these services, which include the potential loss of life from injecting in unsafe/unsupervised environments, the public and individual health benefits of remaining open are greater. Both services are deemed 'essential health services', and their continued operation has important benefits for people who inject drugs in Sydney and Melbourne.

作者

我是这篇论文的作者
点击您的名字以认领此论文并将其添加到您的个人资料中。

评论

主要评分

4.2
评分不足

次要评分

新颖性
-
重要性
-
科学严谨性
-
评价这篇论文

推荐

暂无数据
暂无数据