By Stephen Appezzato
RED BANK – A mobile harm reduction unit will make stops around Monmouth County to provide sterile syringes, wound care, naloxone and other services to those who use drugs.
The Visiting Nurse Association of Central Jersey (VNACJ) recently received approval from the state Department of Health to expand its Harm Reduction Center (HRC) to include a mobile unit.
The unit will make regular stops in Red Bank, Eatontown, Keansburg, Asbury Park, Long Branch, Brick and Toms River, providing trauma-informed and stigma-free care to those who take drugs.
The approval is the first of its kind in five years in New Jersey and demonstrates a growing harm reduction initiative in the state.
The goal of the HRC is to “keep people safe and minimize death and injury from high-risk behavior,” according to the program website. The HRC provides care and services to those “not yet ready or willing to participate in substance abuse treatment.”
According to Michael Litterer, vice president of RWJBarnabas Health’s Institute for Prevention and Recovery (IFPR), these kinds of programs “provide critical support to vulnerable members of our community” by protecting “individuals from the negative consequences of substance use, such as deaths from accidental overdoses and the transmission of infectious diseases.”
Litterer is an expert in this field who oversees the health network’s substance use disorder treatment programs. The IFPR is another organization that implements harm reduction strategies, such as naloxone distribution to prevent overdoses and buprenorphine treatment for patients with opioid use disorder.
The VNACJ’s new mobile unit “will help provide practical, barrier-free care to individuals with substance use disorder, allowing more people access to the services they want and need,” Litterer shared in a statement to The Two River Times.
Alongside sterile syringe and naloxone distribution, the mobile unit will also collect used needles, aimed at preventing the hazardous waste from ending up in public areas.
The VNACJ oversees multiple programs, including the Prevention Resource Network (PRN) which opened its initial HRC in Asbury Park in 2019.
The first sterile syringe distribution initiative in the United States began in the 1980s. It was part of a grassroots advocacy and safety campaign for drug users. With the HIV/ AIDS epidemic at its peak, these diseases were often being spread through shared syringes. As it was the height of the “war on drugs,” these programs were often illegal and highly stigmatized.
Over time, both the public and government agencies became more accepting of the programs and now many are tax-payer funded and government-endorsed.
“Our team understands firsthand the importance of compassionate care for our participants’ survival, recovery, and well-being, and we are honored by this opportunity to expand our life-saving and life-changing work throughout Monmouth and Ocean Counties,” the PRN released in a statement.
This is the most recent development in the state’s response to the overdose crisis, aimed at preventing overdose deaths and the spread of deadly diseases. The state Department of Health reported it dispensed over 1.4 million sterile syringes in 2021.
Locations and dates of the HRC’s mobile unit will be announced in the coming weeks.
The article originally appeared in the September 14 – 20, 2023 print edition of The Two River Times.
