BECKLEY — Dr. Ayne Amjad moved back to Beckley from Pittsburgh six years ago and watched rates of hepatitis B and C rise at her practice, until the majority of her patients had been diagnosed, and she waited.
She spoke to them about their guilt and embarrassment over contracting the diseases, and the resulting depression, and she waited.
Amjad, a Beckley native, watched as people lost their jobs, destroyed relationships, and died as opiate use grew in Southern West Virginia, ground zero for the country’s opiate epidemic, and she waited.
“I get tired of waiting for something to change,” she said.
Big cities in the United States started implementing needle exchange programs in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They rapidly grew in popularity from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s.
West Virginia — where hepatitis B and C are rampant — started to catch up recently.
The Cabell-Huntington Health Department launched a program in September 2015. The Kanawha-Charleston Health Department launched a program in December 2015. West Virginia Health Right launched one in Morgantown in October 2015, and the Wheeling-Ohio County Board of Health began a county-operated program in October of 2015.
Amjad, who practices internal medicine in Beckley, opened a needle exchange program at the two Beckley Pharmacy locations on Wednesday, in cooperation with Ali Sherwani, the owner of the pharmacy.
Amjad says that the role really should have fallen to the Beckley-Raleigh Health Department, but she said it didn’t appear they planned to open a program anytime soon.
“Who am I?” said Amjad, who ran a write-in campaign for Beckley mayor earlier this year. “I’m just someone who lives here.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that Raleigh County is one of the counties viewed as most at risk for a hepatitis C or HIV outbreak in the country. And multiple studies have shown that needle exchange programs are associated with a decrease in the prevalence of HIV and hepatitis C, according to the CDC.
In June, the CDC released a list of the 220 counties in the country most at risk for hepatitis C or HIV outbreaks, in large part due to needle sharing among drug users. Ten West Virginia counties, most in Southern West Virginia — Boone, Fayette, Hancock, Logan, McDowell, Mingo, Monroe, Morgan, Raleigh and Wyoming — were in the nation’s top 50.
During pharmacy hours at 455 Stanaford Road and 105 Anwar Fatima Lane, intravenous drug users can walk in, without making an appointment, and drop off used needles in a box at the pharmacy, in exchange for two clean needles, Amjad’s business card, and fliers with information about hepatitis C and the purpose of the program. They are simply asked to fill out a brief survey on their frequency of drug use, their age, and whether they want help.
Amjad, who is paying for the program, would have no problem with the health department taking the lead on the project. But she also has no problem continuing to run it herself, either. She noted there are grants out there, if she needs them, and other physicians who are willing to help.
Candace Hurd, director of nursing for the health department, said they had been in the “beginning stages of discussion” on starting a needle exchange, and wouldn’t say whether they would consider taking the lead, saying that was a question for the county’s board of health.
About 10 people had taken advantage of the program as of early afternoon Thursday.
The program doesn’t collect names, but that didn’t stop one man from sending in his wife while he waited in the car. A woman there on Thursday afternoon said she was there for her sister.
A post on Facebook about the program drew about 1,000 comments, mostly negative. One person even wrote that the place should be bombed.
The main argument among people opposed to needle exchange programs is that they “enable” users.
They imagine that if the programs don’t exist, maybe people will stop.
One former user at the pharmacy on Thursday explained the logic flaw behind that assumption.
People with addiction problems aren’t generally thinking about their long-term futures.
“You’re looking for that big rush,” he said. “That pain-free rush.”
During his worse days, the man, who said he would go by his middle name Allen, was buying used needles.
Allen was in Beckley to visit a suboxone clinic. He was an intravenous drug user for 13 years, after a toothache and a car wreck turned into an opiate addiction.
Allen, who said his wife is diagnosed with both HIV and hepatitis C due to intravenous drug use, could think of at least seven friends who died from diseases contracted through sharing needles. He believed the diagnosis was MRSA.
“If they would have opened a needle exchange years ago, I cannot tell you how many lives it would have saved,” he said.
She spoke to them about their guilt and embarrassment over contracting the diseases, and the resulting depression, and she waited.
Amjad, a Beckley native, watched as people lost their jobs, destroyed relationships, and died as opiate use grew in Southern West Virginia, ground zero for the country’s opiate epidemic, and she waited.
“I get tired of waiting for something to change,” she said.
Big cities in the United States started implementing needle exchange programs in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They rapidly grew in popularity from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s.
West Virginia — where hepatitis B and C are rampant — started to catch up recently.
The Cabell-Huntington Health Department launched a program in September 2015. The Kanawha-Charleston Health Department launched a program in December 2015. West Virginia Health Right launched one in Morgantown in October 2015, and the Wheeling-Ohio County Board of Health began a county-operated program in October of 2015.
Amjad, who practices internal medicine in Beckley, opened a needle exchange program at the two Beckley Pharmacy locations on Wednesday, in cooperation with Ali Sherwani, the owner of the pharmacy.
Amjad says that the role really should have fallen to the Beckley-Raleigh Health Department, but she said it didn’t appear they planned to open a program anytime soon.
“Who am I?” said Amjad, who ran a write-in campaign for Beckley mayor earlier this year. “I’m just someone who lives here.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that Raleigh County is one of the counties viewed as most at risk for a hepatitis C or HIV outbreak in the country. And multiple studies have shown that needle exchange programs are associated with a decrease in the prevalence of HIV and hepatitis C, according to the CDC.
In June, the CDC released a list of the 220 counties in the country most at risk for hepatitis C or HIV outbreaks, in large part due to needle sharing among drug users. Ten West Virginia counties, most in Southern West Virginia — Boone, Fayette, Hancock, Logan, McDowell, Mingo, Monroe, Morgan, Raleigh and Wyoming — were in the nation’s top 50.
During pharmacy hours at 455 Stanaford Road and 105 Anwar Fatima Lane, intravenous drug users can walk in, without making an appointment, and drop off used needles in a box at the pharmacy, in exchange for two clean needles, Amjad’s business card, and fliers with information about hepatitis C and the purpose of the program. They are simply asked to fill out a brief survey on their frequency of drug use, their age, and whether they want help.
Amjad, who is paying for the program, would have no problem with the health department taking the lead on the project. But she also has no problem continuing to run it herself, either. She noted there are grants out there, if she needs them, and other physicians who are willing to help.
Candace Hurd, director of nursing for the health department, said they had been in the “beginning stages of discussion” on starting a needle exchange, and wouldn’t say whether they would consider taking the lead, saying that was a question for the county’s board of health.
About 10 people had taken advantage of the program as of early afternoon Thursday.
The program doesn’t collect names, but that didn’t stop one man from sending in his wife while he waited in the car. A woman there on Thursday afternoon said she was there for her sister.
A post on Facebook about the program drew about 1,000 comments, mostly negative. One person even wrote that the place should be bombed.
The main argument among people opposed to needle exchange programs is that they “enable” users.
They imagine that if the programs don’t exist, maybe people will stop.
One former user at the pharmacy on Thursday explained the logic flaw behind that assumption.
People with addiction problems aren’t generally thinking about their long-term futures.
“You’re looking for that big rush,” he said. “That pain-free rush.”
During his worse days, the man, who said he would go by his middle name Allen, was buying used needles.
Allen was in Beckley to visit a suboxone clinic. He was an intravenous drug user for 13 years, after a toothache and a car wreck turned into an opiate addiction.
Allen, who said his wife is diagnosed with both HIV and hepatitis C due to intravenous drug use, could think of at least seven friends who died from diseases contracted through sharing needles. He believed the diagnosis was MRSA.
“If they would have opened a needle exchange years ago, I cannot tell you how many lives it would have saved,” he said.
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