Complaints lead P.E.I. to seek new needle exchange location

Less than a month after it opened, health officials on P.E.I. are looking for a new location for the needle exchange office in Charlottetown.

The government took over the operation of the program, which was downtown, from AIDS PEI on April 1. The province opened an office in Charlottetown and another in Summerside. But the Charlottetown location, in a mall in the north of the city, is drawing complaints and concerns from some clients.

"It is a further distance from the downtown area than we would like, as far as convenience," Dr. Lamont Sweet, deputy chief health officer, told CBC News Wednesday.

"If people are walking to the centre, they may have to get the bus to get out that way, or walk quite a distance. So it has been suggested that it would be easier for people to get there if there was a downtown site."

There were also complaints about the exchange being housed in the same office as public health nurses. In particular, some of the people using the program were concerned that government officials might find out they were using the needle exchange.

Earlier this month, the province said just two people used the office in the first three days it was open. Sweet said he did not have any statistics after that time.

Efforts are now being made now to find a downtown office. Sweet said there have been no complaints about the Summerside location at the Harbourside Family Health Centre.