Page 4696 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 19 October 2011
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Prison delegates also discussed with us on Monday their three main concerns. These were obviously around occupational health and safety, rehabilitation of prisoners and the legality of drug taking. While we were not able to agree on all points, we were able to share useful information regarding their concerns. For example, I was able to cite the increase in uptake of drug rehabilitation by prisoners who had an NSP in their prison—that is from the overseas experience—as well as continued enforcement by prison officials against contraband in those prison settings. Also, NSPs have increased the occupational health and safety of prison staff. I was also able to talk to them about the limits of the hepatitis C treatment process. Ms Gallagher has already addressed that today.
I want to note that this is about prevention. That is part of what we are talking about here in terms of blood-borne viruses. Yes, we can provide treatments, and that is an integral part of it, but it is also about preventing people from actually contracting the disease in the first place. As Ms Gallagher has already noted around the hepatitis C treatment, it is an extremely complex treatment. Some people are not going to be suitable for the treatment because in many cases it requires a specific gene type. There are also extreme and very serious side effects with the treatment, and that all needs to be taken into account. When people receive treatment in the community, extensive counselling goes along with that to see if they are going to be able to cope with the side effects.
Instead of just throwing money at the treatment, we need to be considering all the issues around it, including the complexity of it. As I said, part of the whole program of having treatment is about having harm minimisation, and we need to consider all the factors. We also need to consider the complexity of hepatitis C treatment.
Walking away from that meeting with the prison delegates, I did not get the sense, as Mr Hanson was saying today, that it was time for discussions to end. Rather, both sides acknowledged that the issue of drugs in prisons is not going to go away and that we need to work out a way to go forward on this issue collaboratively.
Moving to the Australian Nursing Federation, I note that, despite receiving correspondence from the ANF, Mr Hanson is still yet to correct his tweet from 9 September and other public statements that have put forward a view about the ANF. His Twitter statement from 9 September states:
Canberra Libs support the nurses who have joined the chorus of voices in opposition to Katy Gallagher’s push for a prison needle exchange
The ANF wrote to Mr Hanson in response, saying that they wanted to consider other NSP models and were frustrated they had not yet come to a point of internal agreement. I note Mr Hanson is yet to correct his Twitter account on this view of the ANF.
Perhaps it would have been useful for Mr Hanson to actually have read the ANF’s submission before he put out a media release, made a comment on Twitter and put an article in the CityNews. If he had read the submission, he would have seen the wide
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