2023-10-30 09:49:26
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that about 600,000 people who use drugs die annually. And not only do they die from overdoses, but they are also more vulnerable to HIV or hepatitis C (HCV), a virus that, according to the most recent estimates, affects 40 percent of the 14.8 million people who inject drugs. .
View of the Geneva supervised consumption room facilities. Signature: ConorAshleigh-INSHU-©2023
Improving their access to health from a perspective based on reducing the risks of drug use, instead of pursuing the utopia of ending them, is the idea behind the construction of supervised consumption rooms.
The first opened in Bern (Switzerland) in 1986. Thirty years later, there are barely a hundred in the world, but experts are calling for this situation to change. Holland, France or Germany, like Spain, are countries that do have this type of facilities. The first in the United Kingdom will soon open in Glasgow (Scotland).
In Geneva, Switzerland, the supervised consumption room is located in the city center. About a hundred people use its facilities every day. Minutes before its opening there are queues on the street. Upon entering the facility, workers like Olivier Stabile greet users with kindness and hot coffee.
They provide them with new syringes and medical supplies, as well as a roof and privacy so that they can inject themselves in decent conditions with the substances that each one has obtained on the street. They also have showers and, if you want, a place to sleep.
Medical consultation in drug consumption rooms
He has a doctor’s consultation two days a week. People who use drugs have access to tests to detect HIV and HCV, as well as direct-acting antivirals that eliminate the virus from the body in a country where access to healthcare depends on paying for health insurance. .
These checks allow the presence of HCV among people who inject drugs to be reduced in Switzerland to levels similar to those of the population as a whole.
Image of the medical supplies received by people who go to the supervised consumption room in Geneva. Signature: ConorAshleigh-INSHU-©2023
Non-lethal overdose
Nor do overdoses have a lethal end in these centers. In one year there were 50 people who lost consciousness due to excessive drug use, but all of them saved their lives. Being in the supervised consumption room allowed an ambulance to arrive quickly.
Ruth Dreifuss She was the Swiss president who promoted the construction of this supervised consumption room and who also pushed for the Swiss confederation to overcome the policy of prohibition of consumption and implement public policies based on four pillars: prevention, therapy, risk reduction and repression.
She is now the president of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, an entity that pushes to decriminalize drug possession and consumption and to regulate the market, among other issues.
International Conference on Health and Hepatitis in Substance Users
Within the framework of INHSU 2023 (International Conference on Health and Hepatitis in Substance Users), held days ago, Dreifuss visits the Geneva consumption room.
“It is satisfying to see that we have saved lives and that we have improved the health of people who use drugs. For example, regarding HCV, this group has the same prevalence as the general population. But it is a job that never ends. There are young people who are taking up consumption, new substances and we have challenges to find solutions for,” he explains to EFEsalud Dreifuss.
Prevention policies, harm reduction, proportionality in repression and the focus on health should be, in his opinion, the key in caring for people who use drugs.
“People who come to these drug consumption rooms escape the double stress, that of the Police and that of the drug sellers. This is a place of dignity. They meet people who can help them from a medical, hygiene, and social point of view,” says Dreiffus.
The former president of the Swiss Confederation and president of the Global Commission on Drug Policies, Ruth Dreifuss, together with workers from the Geneva supervised consumption room. . Signature: ConorAshleigh-INSHU-©2023.
Drug consumption rooms: testimony of a user
His approach is shared by Jessy Jaccoud, 49 years old. He has been taking drugs for 35 years and has been going to this supervised consumption room since 2002.
“I come here for safety, for hygiene, for the help they offer me, the assistance and also to work,” this man who, he says, uses heroin, cocaine, hashish, ecstasy, benzodiazepine and occasionally crack, explains to EFEsalud. In this center he usually works a few hours two days a week and has also worked in a bakery with which the room collaborates. When he was young, he says, he trained to be a baker.
Linda Zehetbauer, social worker, explains the importance of center users being able to access work. They charge ten francs per hour and help with basic tasks for the running of the house such as cleaning, distributing coffee or food, and maintenance. “It is a way for people to mobilize and assume responsibilities,” she explains to EFEsalud.
In total, 30 people, including social workers, administration and health personnel, contribute their part so that people like Jessy Jacoud have a dignified, healthier life and in which they simply find a place to feel good.
One of the objectives of the International Conference on Health and Hepatitis in Substance Users is that these resources are not exceptional, and that in this way the health of people who inject drugs and, by extension, that of everyone is improved.
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