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Rick Altice: As overdoses rise, patients need safe equipment.
A Yale harm reduction-focused healthcare team has its sights set on installing a trio of vending machines around town that would dispense not candy bars and soda, but clean syringes, safe injection kits, and overdose reversal medication.
Rick Altice, the director of the mobile Yale Community Health Care Van, pitched that idea to the Fair Haven Community Management Team at the group’s latest meeting Thursday night at the Fair Haven branch library at 182 Grand Ave.
The Community Health Care Van is aiming to place “harm reduction vending machines” in Fair Haven, Downtown, and another part of New Haven still to be determined, Altice said.
The harm reduction approach to health care aims to support people engaging in high risk activities, like substance use and sex work, with life-saving tools that can help them stay as safe as possible. The Community Health Care Van already distributes harm reduction supplies like condoms, clean needles, and overdose-reversing Naloxone.
The proposed vending machines would provide those supplies at any time of day, said Altice. They would dispense products free of charge, and only to patients who have registered with the program. The vending machines would also provide a needle deposit site where clients can dispose of drug paraphernalia.
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A harm reduction vending machine in Ottawa, Canada.
Harm reduction vending machines “tend to be a way to reduce stigma” and “increase access,” Altice told the management team members Thursday.
The Community Health Care Van aims to ultimately connect clients with substance use disorders to long-term treatment when they are ready and willing to go, he added.
The proposal comes as Connecticut’s overdose rate has been climbing; accidental overdose deaths reached a record high in 2021. It also comes as another harm reduction coalition of Fair Haven neighbors has called on the city to help turn a vacant Grand Avenue lot into a one-stop “engagement center” for sex workers, day laborers, and people struggling with substance use disorders.
“We do need to provide additional safety for our clients until we can get them into treatment,” said Altice.
According to the Addiction Center, Nevada became the first U.S. state to implement a harm reduction vending machine model in 2017. Since then, communities including New York City and Rhode Island have undertaken similar initiatives.
Where exactly would the vending machines be located? asked David Steinhardt on Thursday night.
That’s still to be determined after neighborhood input, answered Altice. “They can’t be within a certain distance of a school … maybe 500 feet,” he said.
“How does this align with policing,” giving that some of the supplies are associated with illegal activity? asked Christina Griffin, the management team’s secretary.
“We try to create a safe zone” with police around the vending machines, Altice said, so that patients know they won’t be questioned or arrested for accessing the supplies. That’s worked out so far with the Community Health Care Van’s harm reduction services, he added.
The management team will vote over the weekend on whether to issue a “letter of support” for the vending machines, as Altice requested.
How do you plan to keep kids from emptying the machines as a prank or someone else from selling the needles on the street in other cities?