The Disc Trust officially hands over needle exchange services, as well as some of its infrastructure, to the South Island-wide Te Waipounamu Collective today.
The collective begins at its new premise at McBride St, South Dunedin, and has promised to lean on Disc’s expertise: the old King Edward St building will still be used for counselling and drop-in services.
Disc lost the contract in April, having held it since the service began about 34 years ago.
The handover has been beset by a lack of communication and the Disc Trust were at one stage fearful the new provider would not be ready with the infrastructure in time, the Otago Daily Times has been told.
The ODT understands most of Disc’s Dunedin branch needle-exchange workers have been hired by the new provider.
A Dunedin-based needle exchange worker said there was some relief among the clients that there would be "familiar faces" in the new services.
"We’re keen to build and maintain a good relationship with the new provider."
Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora Starting Well director Deborah Woodley said there had been no hurdles in procuring the site, which was chosen because it was close to the existing site.
This new South Island provider has been authorised by the Director-general of Health as per the requirements of the Health (Needles and Syringes) Regulations, she said.
"The new provider believes healthcare should be accessible, stigma-free and grounded in aroha.
"For more than 25 years, its staff have been delivering health and social services throughout Murihiku Southland, always working to remove barriers and make sure people can access the care they need, when they need it."
Health New Zealand provided the Te Waipounamu Collective a $1 milllion contract to deliver the services in the Southern region, compared with the previous contract of $1.4m.
University of Otago drug and public health researcher Dr Geoff Noller said at a bare minimum, the new provider should provide the same service as the previous provider.
"That service would include clean and sterile injecting equipment. That’s the number one thing.
"But equally as importantly, the service should provide knowledgeable and empathic information about harm reduction in relation to injecting drug use."
Needle exchange was fundamentally a harm reduction project, Dr Noller said.
"So the idea is that you acknowledge that there will be some people who use drugs, in this case, inject drugs.
"Therefore, you need to keep people as safe as possible."
A key element of needle exchange in New Zealand generally was that the service was anonymous, he said.
"That, again, comes back to the idea of stigma and the stigma that clients frequently face.
"The clients of those services don’t necessarily have access to other healthcare services that many of the rest of us do.
"It might be that they feel uncomfortable going to a healthcare service.
"So having a service like needle exchange gives people who are clients of that service an opportunity to attend a social service that supports them."
The new centre’s opening hours will be 9am-6pm Monday to Friday and 10am-2pm on Saturdays.
