By Matthew Monks
The AIDS Center of Queens County would operate the proposed syringe exchange at its facility at 42-57 Hunter St. on Tuesdays and Fridays from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., said the center’s director, Philip Glotzer, just one local leader who attended an April 20 meeting in Marshall’s office to discuss the exchange.
Community Board 2, whose health committee supports the center, should vote on it May 6, after which it will be considered for a license by the city’s Department of Health.
Board Chairman Joseph Conley said Long Island City desperately needs an exchange because of the community’s high number of HIV/AIDS patients.
“We’ve got to educate people. We’ve got to get them off drugs. We’ve got to stop the spread of AIDS,” Conley said.
As of April 2003, there were 6,912 people who had been diagnosed with AIDS in Queens, according to the city Department of Mental Health and Hygiene.
The board blocked a mobile needle exchange in March that would have been near Queensbridge Houses in face of opposition from City Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Sunnyside) and community leaders from the neighborhood.
A mobile exchange “was totally unacceptable,” Marshall said.
The borough president convened last week’s meeting of community leaders and health officials to reach a compromise on the project. They settled on a site in the current AIDS center facility in Long Island City. An advisory board comprised of members of Community Boards 1 and 2 will oversee the project, monitoring its inventory and operation programs, Marshall said.
She said the exchange should be operational by 2005.
The program will be conducted in the main waiting area of the facility, where participants will have access to other health services, Glotzer said. Participants will drop their used syringes into a box and be issued an equal number of sterile needles, he said.
The city Health Department operates needle exchanges in 15 neighborhoods in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx, he said. They hinder the spread of HIV/AIDS, he said, because the disease is primarily spread through intravenous drug use. They also serve as outreaches to drug addicts, a population that traditionally falls through the cracks of the social support system.
“Substance use actually goes down when there is a needle exchange,” Glotzer said. “In a way it’s an intervention.”
After the Long Island City program is underway, the AIDS center will try to establish three other needle exchanges in Jamaica, Far Rockaway and Jackson Heights — all areas with high numbers of HIV-infected drug users, Glotzer said.
Reach reporter Matthew Monks by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 156.
