In uh there was this report don’t treat us as outsiders so uh it includes uh basically um um drug policies drug prohibition what it is uh uh how it uh all started in the global north and how it afterwards came to the african region in the southern african region what are the global policies now and also how uh civil society reacting to that what are the services
Health and social services for people who use drugs and how is the debate around drug policy reform and also the report includes a part where there are the voices of people who use drug in five different countries uh with really the live experiences of how it is to be a drug user in uh in an african country so in terms of opiate overdose per se i think it is uh
Um difficult to really have a have a sense of what is happening of course you can have the information uh with peers because uh peers are the one who say things happening peers are the one to experience things but then uh in terms of when you want to look at um at policies and data to push things forward uh there are uh some places where there is the the there
Is no national data about uh overdose uh and i can use a mauritius asset as an example when somebody is dies from an overdose on the um death certificate it is not written death from overdose so there is no data and it it really makes things difficult because if you want to push uh and really for for policies to to um to include um or to take uh seriously the
The question of overdose you need the data and the data is not here okay so with regards to naloxone i haven’t heard any any country in the region that really has um naloxone that is in the community uh we’ve been hearing about uh health systems where they do have naloxone at the hospital and i mean i think we have enough um uh documentation now to know that okay
It’s good to have naloxone basically in the hospital that this is not basically where it should uh limit it cannot be limited to a hospital because when there is a case of overdose happening it is uh unlikely that people have it in the hospital or sometimes where people or or brought to the hospital it can be too late and also and that i know there are situations
Like that uh in the region where if you bring someone that’s having an overdue to the hospital then you can have a a police case because what are you doing there what’s your role in this are you are you the one who who gave who gave the the the person the the product that he’s over overdosing on are you uh part of the deal are you also using so um of course this
Doesn’t uh encourage people to uh to bring their peers uh to to to hospital and when there is a case of of naloxone um but uh as as far as uh um i mean i know that uh for example we’ve been talking about the uh national drug plan that they are planning to do in in zimbabwe and what civil society want to do now is to include it in the in the in the plan when the
Draft will go and and and be circulated among the different partners but uh this is still like the the the beginning of the of the theoretical part and then taking taking it from the theory to practice is something else as far as as mauritius is concerned i think it’s it’s it’s interesting to to say now there is a um a section under the prime minister’s office
That is the national drug secretariat and then we have a drug master plan which is called the um national drug control master plan and it’s uh it’s interesting because uh different uh um um civil society partners have been part of the of the drafting and um um naloxone is part of the of the plan not only naloxone but naloxone as being distributed in the community
Um is part of the plan but now we still need to see it going uh from from the plan to the field like we still have to see it happening but i think it also is a a major step that we have it written in the policy now it’s all a matter of uh of advocacy of how well the advocacy is uh is uh is brought forward but uh but but it’s here it’s here so it’s interesting to to mention that you
Transcribed from video
ARASA #TreatUsRight Webinar 2 OD Naloxone Nathalie Rose video interview FINAL By ARASA Communications
