CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The president of the Kanawha-Charleston Board of Health hopes to one day bring back the needle exchange portion of the department’s harm reduction program that was suspended Monday.
Brenda Isaac said Tuesday during an appearance on MetroNews “Talkline” the needle exchange is needed in Charleston.
“I do hope we can at some point resume the program and we will follow whatever guidelines the task force comes up with that we need to follow,” Isaac said.
Charleston City Council announced last week its plans to form a task force instead of voting to recriminalize hypodermic needles like Charleston Mayor Danny Jones wanted. The process hit a roadblock Monday when Police Chief Steve Cooper promulgated seven requirements that would have to be met by the health department for the needle exchange to continue. The health department responded by suspending the program.
Isaac said they wouldn’t have enough time to meet some of the chief’s requirements but she wants to work with city officials.
“I would love to be able to meet with him and come to some common ground and we would like to work with the police chief, the fire chief, the mayor and I’m assuming they’re all going to have representation on the task force and come up with what we need to do to keep the needle exchange portion of the harm reduction program,” Isaac said.
But Cooper didn’t sound very interested in any compromise when he appeared on “Talkline” Tuesday.
“We just think these guidelines would mitigate some of the dangers,” he said. “It’s our belief that the exchange program with the health department has just brought a catastrophe into downtown Charleston.”
Cooper cites the increase of police calls to the Town Center Mall, which is located near the health department, along with used needles found daily by police and firefighters. He said they’ve been located at fire scenes on playgrounds and even in Little League baseball dugouts. Cooper and Jones have said the program has attracted the criminal element to Charleston.
Cooper predicts an immediate impact with the program’s suspension.
“We expect that there won’t be 250,000 dirty needles laying on the streets during the next two years,” he said.
Isaac maintains the program has done a lot of good over the last 27 months including holding down the spread of Hepatitis C. She said there have been no HIV cases reported in the county.
She said the decision to suspend the needle exchange program was tough to do.
“There were tears in a lot of eyes when I told our staff that we were going to have to stop the program—because these are people. These are our patients. We know these people. They aren’t just a bunch of junkies,” she said.
Isaac added the health department was working on some more changes to the program when it got Cooper’s letter Monday.