POW! Breaking barriers to hep C care in the Suburbs
Through the Peers on Wheels (POW) project, NUAA has partnered with The Kirby Institute, NSW Health, and selected Local Health Districts, to work towards eliminating hep C through outreach, testing and offering treatment options. At the heart of the project is a van, with a Point of Care Testing (POCT) machine and a skilled peer workforce. The aim is to remove barriers to hep C treatment among people who inject drugs by going to where people live and providing the service without stigma. The POW team has visited various regional cities and towns and rural communities around NSW, but Users News caught up with them in Riverwood in the suburbs of Sydney.
Coming over and coming out
3 women from 3 different backgrounds put their family and their drug use together in 3 different ways
Pandora: Older and wiser
The responsibilities of motherhood changed Pandora’s relationship with drugs. Here she reflects on this and how it has also changed her relationship with herself. “I used to believe that stuff about myself, but I don’t anymore. I know the truth,” she explains. “I know that people who use drugs are people like anyone else and unlike anyone else. We are smart, interesting, creative and uniquely ourselves. We love our families and our friends. We work hard at our jobs. We clean the house and walk the dog. We try to be healthy. We make mistakes. We grow.”
Drug use, disability, neurodivergence and healthcare | Helio’s Story
I first sought out an ADHD diagnosis when I was 23, and the psychiatrist told me, “No, actually you just have the learning capacity of a 16-year-old due to your drug addiction.” Yikes. It took me a couple of years to wrestle with that message – to make sure I rejected it on a deep level – before I tried again with another doctor. And boom, I was right: my ADHD scored off the charts. No wonder amphetamines help my brain feel regulated.
I thought drugs were making me psychotic, but it was just stigma and misunderstanding | Akshay’s Story
When you’re beginning your journey of drug use, it is easy to get a bit overenthusiastic and end up lost, especially when you don’t have any elders around to help guide you. Akshay spent a lot of time worrying that cannabis and LSD had given him drug-induced anxiety, depersonalisation and psychosis, but he eventually realised that the people who were trying to help him held some negative attitudes towards drugs, and he needed a more supportive — and experienced — community around him.
To a US Methadone Recipient, Visiting Australia Was Shocking
At Users News we often hear stories about people facing stigma when accessing OTP services. However, there’s always somewhere worse, and if the issue is stigmatisation of people who use drugs, that somewhere is often the USA. American harm reduction activist Danielle Russell was in Australia last year and was with a friend when they were picking up their methadone. She was totally blown away by the fact that her Australian friend was treated like a human. She wrote this article for Filter magazine when she returned to the US.
Why you need to focus on self-care when caring for friends in a crisis | Jack’s Story
Jack’s friend became mentally unwell and he desperately wanted to help but unfortunately, he started to burn out. Jack talks about what you can do to support a friend, and how to set healthier boundaries.
Police grabbed me for “walking with the intent of committing a crime” — I was running for a piss! | Pat’s story about being stopped regularly
Pat is a gay Aboriginal man with bipolar. He shares what it’s like to get caught with drugs and then be noticed by police for the rest of his life.
Why aren’t people in rural areas getting the new ‘game-changing’ hep C treatments? | Katrina’s Story
Katrina is a peer distributor for NUAA in a small rural town in NSW. She’s known she’s had hep C for 6 years but has found it hard to get treated because of the lack of services in her area and past experiences of stigma within a health care setting.
Language matters
Language is powerful, especially when talking about alcohol, other drugs and the people who use them
Taking drugs + being trans: The getting of Wisdom
UN had the pleasure of taking afternoon tea with four amazing trans-people to explore the role that drugs have played in their lives, owning identity, “passing”, being “queer” and community
COMMUNITY TIES: WHY PEER-BASED PROGRAMS WORK
DanceWize NSW co-ordinator Georgina Bell, who has seen first-hand the difference that harm reduction services make on the ground at festivals, raves and bush doofs.
BLAIR'S STORY: VALE LUKE -- OR IN SUPPORT OF SUBOXONE
This story is about a friend who would likely be alive today if he didn’t feel compelled to stop taking his life-saving medication.
EMMA'S STORY: WE DESERVE TREATMENTS THAT WORK AND ARE SAFE!
'I needed to believe in a miracle cure.'