Australia (Commonwealth Union) – Drug addiction can often stir up mixed emotions across society, with some sympathetic to their plight and some others holding a negative view of them, and are often stigmatized in society in spite being victims. The stigmas may serve as a barrier when seeking support and at times drug overdosing can lead to fatalities.
A personalized application to handling overdoses at Sydney’s only Medically Supervised Injecting Centre (MSIC) has led to improved long term health outcomes for its clients’ which was indicated in a study by the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and Western Sydney University criminologists. The central focus of the center is giving people utilizing the MSIC facilities to inject drugs with respect and dignity, which gives the opportunity to manage overdoses more sensitively.
Dr George ‘Kev’ Dertadian is a social researcher at UNSW Law & Justice who researched drug use among the marginalized and people from opulent backgrounds. He stated that the most recent study, published in Contemporary Drug Problems, indicate that the term ‘overdose’ has more of a nuanced understanding for center staff caring for persons utilizing injecting rooms than the traditional perception held by staff in a hospital emergency department.
The knowledge by Sydney’s only injecting center staff of the clients gives them an advantage to make available the most appropriate treatment for overdosing. “When we spoke to the staff who work at the MSIC, they talked about overdose as occurring on a spectrum of harm,” explained Dr Dertadian. “So, they wouldn’t wait, for instance, until someone ‘dropped’ – as in lost consciousness or went blue in the face, which is the normal way ambulance or hospital staff would respond or recognise overdose.”
This means nurses at MSIC applied other cues to determine if one of their clients was at risk of overdosing much earlier than the stage of losing consciousness.
