The impact of COVID-19 across health services, including treatment services for people who use drugs, is emerging but likely to have a high impact. Treatment services for people who use drugs provide essential treatment services including opiate agonist treatment and needle syringe programmes alongside other important treatment programmes across all substance types including withdrawal and counselling services. Drug and alcohol hospital consultation-liaison clinicians support emergency departments and other services provided in hospital settings in efficiently managing patients who use drugs and present with other health problems.COVID-19 will impact on staff availability for work due to illness. Patients may require home isolation and quarantine periods. Ensuring ongoing supply of opiate treatment during these periods will require significant changes to how treatment is provided. The use of monthly depot buprenorphine as well as moving from a framework of supervised dosing will be required for patients on sublingual buprenorphine and methadone. Ensuring ready access to take-home naloxone for patients is crucial to reduce overdose risks. Delivery of methadone and buprenorphine to the homes of people with confirmed COVID-19 infections is likely to need to occur to support home isolation.People who use drugs are likely to be more vulnerable during the COVID-19 epidemic, due to poorer health literacy and stigma and discrimination towards this group. People who use drugs may prioritise drug use above other health concerns. Adequate supply of clean injecting equipment is important to prevent outbreaks of blood-borne viruses. Opiate users may misinterpret SARS-CoV2 symptoms as opiate withdrawal and manage this by using opioids. Ensuring people who use drugs have access to drug treatment as well as access to screening and testing for SARS-CoV2 where this is indicated is important.
As reference librarians, we are schooled in the philosophy that information should be freely available to all. Equal access to information is an important component of a democratic society, and a value we are taught to embrace. How then do we confront the conflict presented in a centrally located, private university in an urban setting in which our own users, the University's faculty and students, are indistinguishable from a sea of non-affiliated users, all needing "information," but competing for our resources, both staff and materials? These conflicts may be more obvious at our particular Reference desks, but our situations are not that unique. Reference librarians everywhere are forced to make decisions daily about whom to serve and how much service to provide.In keeping with the general philosophy of free information most university libraries, whether public or private, retain open access for use of their collections on-site. At George Washington University(GW) and Georgetown University(GU) access to the buildings and main collections are unrestricted. George Washington, for security reasons, does check user identification at the door, but almost noone is denied admittance. Restrictions apply to such services as circulation, use of reserve and media resources, but these are relatively easily controlled since presentation of a University or otherwise authorized identification card is necessary to complete a transaction.Reference service is another maner, especially extensive reference service. Neither library feels that it has the human resources to Ms.
No abstract
No abstract
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.