CLARK COUNTY — Health officials in Clark County are taking a different path toward a yearlong plan for a county needle exchange.
Clark County health officer Dr. Kevin Burke said the county has recently stopped attempts to work with the AIDS Healthcare Foundation as a funding source for the program.
“We had worked long and hard to try to reach an agreement with the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, but we are at a point where we're not going to pursue that strategy to help fund and implement the program,” he said.
Burke said Clark County had been working on an agreement with the foundation, but it had been slowed regarding terms of the contract, and the county is now seeking funding elsewhere.
Burke said a condition of the AIDS Health Foundation being on board was to be part of a discount pharmaceuticals program, and the Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) had not wanted to go that route, because it could open doors for other organizations to want the same thing, Burke said.
Clark County is in the process of resubmitting the application to the ISDH, with the intention to work with two new entities — one of which is The Health Foundation of Greater Indianapolis. Burke said they will likely have to use volunteers to work the exchange and use the funding for supplies.
Until the program gets fully implemented, which will require not only funding, but also acceptance by the state health department, Burke said some people have been visiting other areas for clean needles, but that can't account for everyone. He said having a place in the community where people can go makes fewer barriers to people having access to relatively safer solutions.
“There are some other sources, some individuals from Clark County go to Scott County and Louisville [needle exchanges],” he said. “It's not that they're unavailable, they're not [very] convenient."
He said when the program gets off the ground, it will be open one day a week, six hours a day, at the Clark County Health office on Akers Ave. in Jeffersonville. This means those going to get needles will also have ready access to testing.
“The value of having it there is that these people need to be tested for HIV and Hepatitis C and [we'll be] in the same building during the same hours of those services,” he said. “We can't force them to get tested but we'll encourage them and it will be simple, because they can get their blood taken in the same building.”