Two syringe services opened this year as Estill County went to a mobile clinic after Irvine council balked.
BY: MELISSA PATRICK, KENTUCKY HEALTH NEWS
JULY 6, 2023
Kentucky has added two new syringe-service programs for intravenous drug users this year, bringing the total to 84 SSPs, in 65 of the state’s 120 counties. Hart County opened its program in January and Estill County reopened its program in April.
SSPs are part of what health departments call “harm reduction” — programs that offer a host of strategies to minimize the negative physical and social impacts of drug use. They are also called syringe-exchange programs, or needle exchanges, for the best-known element of the prorgams.
Estill County’s program reopened after being shut down in 2020 because the Irvine City Council took away its approval, required by state law in a city where a program is based. The Estill County Health Department’s program is now in a mobile clinic that goes to multiple locations in the east-central Kentucky county.