© Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, 1995

Canadian HIV/AIDS Policy & Law Newsletter

Volume 2 Number 1 - October 1995

Australia: A Community Policy on Bloodborne Diseases

A number of community groups in New South Wales (NSW) have joined forces and produced a policy on the prevention and treatment of bloodborne diseases, such as HIV and hepatitis C, in the prison system.[1]

The policy was launched on 18 September 1995. It reflects the interests of a wide range of community-based organizations, including the AIDS Council of NSW (ACON), a drug-user association, the Hepatitis C Council of NSW, a prisoners action group, and a group of transgender persons. According to Geoffrey Bloom, Policy Advisor for ACON, all measures proposed in the policy "must be implemented before NSW can say that it is doing all that it can to fight the epidemics."[2]

Among many other things, the policy recommends that:

  • • all prisoners have "free, confidential access to new injection equipment on a strict exchange basis"; drug equipment be "excluded from communal spaces within the prison, except for transport to and from a point of exchange"; prisoners be provided with information and education about the correct use of injecting equipment; prisoners "known to have this equipment should not be subject to discriminatory treatment or harassing cell searches";

    • prisoners have access to bleach, and to sterilization equipment of a clinical standard for tattoo guns and body-piercing equipment;

    • there be no limit to the number of prisoners who have a history of opiate use having access to the prison methadone program;

    • positive prisoners be given information about and access to all existing treatments, complementary therapies, and alternative and natural therapies available outside prison;

    • requests from seriously ill positive prisoners for compassionate early release be considered promptly.

    •

    • The policy also addresses an issue that underlies many of the problems raised by HIV/AIDS in prisons: current drug laws that result in many drug users being sentenced to prison, where they continue using and run an increased risk of contracting HIV. In order to decrease the number of drug users sentenced to prison, it recommends a variety of changes to drug laws.

    To obtain a copy of the policy, contact Geoffrey Bloom, ACON, PO Box 350, Darlinghurst, NSW, 2010, Australia. Tel: (61-2) 206-2042; fax: (61-2) 206-2069.

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    ENDNOTES

    [1] The AIDS Council of NSW et al. Prisons and Blood Borne Communicable Diseases. The Community Policy. Darlinghurst: The Council, September 1995.

    [2] G Bloom. The Community Policy: Prisons and Blood Borne Communicable Diseases. [Australian] HIV/AIDS Legal Link, vol 6, no 2 (June 1995) at 14-15.