Aids fear as inmates lack condoms

By NAOMI LARKIN

Prisoners need to be given condoms and jail drug policies must be changed to prevent the spread of HIV/Aids, the Aids Foundation says.

Foundation chief executive Kevin Hague said yesterday that the Department of Corrections policy towards sex and intravenous drug use was creating unsafe behaviour which helped to increase the spread of infectious diseases.

"The problem is that the department's policy is that drug use and sex don't occur in prisons." Making condoms, methadone, clean needles and syringes available and providing prevention mechanisms was inconsistent with the policy that the behaviour either did not or should not occur.

Under department policy sex in prison is prohibited and condoms are not available. Most inmates on methadone are withdrawn from the programme after 42 days and there is no policy on bleach (to sterilise needles).

These rules are contrary to World Health Organisation guidelines on HIV and Aids in prisons.

The department needed to acknowledge men were having sex with men in prisons and make condoms readily available to inmates, Mr Hague said.

Medical Association chairwoman Dr Pippa MacKay said the department's policy was not realistic.

"For New Zealand to say 'using drugs and having sex in prisons is illegal, we can't do something that's going to facilitate it,' is fairly ostrich-like."

Minister of Corrections Matt Robson said the debate about condom and needle availability in prisons had been around for years.

"Officials will be assessing the risk of infection in New Zealand prisons, checking the results of condom trials in Australian prisons and evaluating policies followed in other jurisdictions."

Dr MacKay said the World Medical Association last month passed a declaration at its annual conference in Edinburgh, which she attended, urging action by all 70 member countries to combat the spread of diseases in prisons.

A former prisoner, Jason, who was released in August, told the Herald that he regularly shared the same syringe with up to 12 inmates to inject morphine and amphetamines.

Prisoners were well aware of the health risks but there was no option for drug users, he said. "They [the department] know the drugs are in there and they try to catch you with them but if they know they are there they should give you needles," Jason said.

Karen Blacklock, manager of the Auckland Drug Information Outreach Trust, said the organisation had asked the former National Government to widen the methadone programme - allowing all opiate dependent inmates access to the drug - to help reduce the number of people injecting. Methadone is taken orally.

However only small changes had been made, she said.

Simon Nimmo, national coordinator for the Needle Exchange Programme, said methadone maintenance schemes would help reduce the drug injection rate.

Maintenance programmes, which were available outside prison, enabled the addict to have a consistent dose for as long as he or she wanted. This meant they were stable and functioning plus the injection behaviour reduced.

"With about 30 per cent of people in prison for drug-related offences a fair proportion of prison inmates would he quite happy to do their time on methadone and it reduces the risk to the rest of society," Mr Nimmo said.

"Most cell blocks have a needle and syringe which circulates between all inhabitants."