AIDS PEI and the Department of Health and Social Services are offering a workshop on November 7, 2001 to representatives from the health and justice system interested in learning more about the prevention of Hepatitis C through harm reduction programs such as needle exchange.
Conference guest speaker, Chief Superintendent Robert Lesser, is responsible for the National RCMP Organized Crime and Drug Programs Branch in Ottawa. Chief Lesser will share knowledge and views from a law enforcement perspective on how the community and health and justice systems can work together to effectively implement harm reduction strategies.
Chief Lesser develops and monitors national drug enforcement and harm reduction policy and activities. He is also responsible for organized crime and border integrity issues. He has previously been Director of the Counter-Terrorism Division for the Department of the Solicitor General of Canada. During his 33 years as a member of the RCMP, in addition to being a uniformed officer, he has been responsible for operational training at the Canadian Police College, a law and crisis intervention instructor at the RCMP Training Academy, and a drug investigator with the Ottawa and Halifax Drug Sections.
Geri Hirsch, an Advanced Practice Nurse specializing in liver disease, will provide participants with an overview of hepatitis C, its symptoms, transmission and treatment. Ms. Hirsch works with a multi-disciplinary team providing care to patients with liver disease in partnership with the Atlantic region's only hepatologist at the QE II Health Science Centre in Halifax.
Other workshop presenters include harm reduction and addictions professionals from the Maritimes and an Islander and former injection drug user who contracted hepatitis C through sharing needles.
Dianne Birt, Project Coordinator for AIDS PEI, advised that diseases like hepatitis C can be prevented through education, behavioural change and harm reduction; yet, half of those infected with the disease on PEI have contracted it from sharing injection drug use equipment with an infected person. "During the course of the workshop, participants will identify barriers and solutions to effective provincial harm reduction strategies," said Ms. Birt.
The workshop will take place at the Rodd Charlottetown Hotel. For more information, please contact Dianne Birt, 368-5293.