HHS Director renews plea for needle program funding

After revising his budget and talking the county Community Care Organization into agreeing to cover more of the cost, Yamhill County Health and Human Services Director Silas Halloran-Steiner renewed his plea on Monday, for funds to cover a needle exchange program. He told the committee the program is crucial to address the problem of discarded dirty needles littering parks, school playgrounds and other public areas. In order to obtain clean needles, users would have to bring in their used ones for exchange.

Halloran-Steiner was addressing the full county budget committee, in his annual presentation. After a public hearing tonight, the committee will hold its deliberations on Wednesday.

The hearing will be held at 7 p.m. in room 32 of the county courthouse.

All of the meetings are open to the public. County commissioners Rick Olson and Casey Kulla said that some people had questioned whether they could attend, after reading online admonitions to county department heads, not to bring non-essential staff. County Administrator Ken Huffer said those are intended to prevent the department heads from making their presentations longer, by having multiple staff members address the committee.

Halloran-Steiner said he is asking for $38,074 from the county General Fund, to cover about 40 percent of the cost to start up the program, down from the $58,000 he had been seeking. About another $60,000 would come from the Community Care Organization.

Halloran-Steiner said that, as part of his attempt to cut costs, he eliminated a mobile van from the plan, replacing it with a used truck he proposed to buy from the state Motor Pool auction, for an estimated $2,400. But he told the budget committee that he had just learned the city of McMinnville is willing to donate an ambulance it is declaring surplus, which could be used instead. He asked to retain the $2,400, however, to cover the cost of removing all of the ambulance trappings, such as lights, sirens and markings, and revamping the inside for the new use.

He said he and his staff have spent the past year trying to find federal grant funds that could be used instead, but have not been able to find any. He plans, however, to keep looking.

“We have a huge need right now, with heroin” addiction, Halloran-Steiner told commissioners. But he said it's not just heroin; other drugs are also being injected, and some of the discarded dirty needles are from diabetics, who also would benefit from the exchange program.

Oregon is suffering a massive outbreak of Hepatitis C, which can be spread by dirty needles, Halloran-Steiner said. In Yamhill County, the CCO spent $30,000 last year to treat people infected with the disease, he said. Preventing it from being spread in the first place would be highly cost-effective, he said.

He said the risk is not just to drug addicts, but also to members of the general public and to law enforcement officers and paramedics, who are at risk of being stuck with dirty needles either from accidentally touching discarded ones, or from being stuck while arresting crime suspects, or treating medical problems.

“It isn't an open invitation to people in the county to go out and abuse illegal substances, or condoning that behavior,” Halloran-Steiner said. “It's a harm reduction strategy.

“We think the public and first-responders deserve to have fewer dirty needles they're exposed to.”

For more details, see the Tuesday edition of the News-Register.