MORGANTOWN — Difficult, counterintuitive, unsightly.
Those were some of the words used by members of the Monongalia County Commission to describe Milan Puskar Health Right’s needle exchange program, known as LIGHT, or Living in Good Health Together.
The commission’s final word on the program?
Necessary.
The body on Wednesday joined Morgantown City Council in providing its annual letter of support for the harm reduction effort. The letters became a requirement with the 2021 passage of SB334 by the West Virginia Legislature.
“Ultimately,” Commission President Sean Sikora said, “the program is a net benefit to our citizens and we didn’t want to harm the program by withholding our letter of support.”
But the county’s backing comes with some requests.
One, the commission is asking Health Right to work more closely with the Monongalia County Health Department and, specifically, County Health Officer Dr. Brian Huggins.
Two, the commission is urging Health Right to place a renewed emphasis on referring participants in the program to treatment and other services.
Commissioner Tom Bloom points to data he requested from the state indicating that in 2022, the program had 331 participants, nearly half of which (162) entered substance use disorder treatment. That year, there were more than 800 referrals made for treatment services, medical services, HIV/Hep C screening, housing, Medicaid/food stamps etc.
In 2023, the program had 564 participants of which 20 entered substance use disorder treatment based on 119 total referrals.
Between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31 of this year, the LIGHT program has connected 10 people with treatment, made 10 referrals to primary care and connected 125 people to HIV and/or Hep C screenings.
“I am very, very, very concerned about the direction the numbers are going in referrals. They’re not going in the right direction,” Bloom said. “I believe we need to find out how we can make those numbers better.”
Milan Puskar Health Right Executive Director Laura Jones recently told Morgantown City Council that mandating treatment is a failed methodology, and while there is no requirement for participants to be in counseling or seeking other services, those services are always available and offered.
“We may have only had 10 people that were interested in treatment and were actually taken to treatment in the last nine months, but that’s not the only avenue at Health Right or in our community for people to get into treatment,” she said.
Lastly, the commission wants more detailed information when it comes to the distribution and collection of needles.
As part of the aforementioned legislation, needles are to be distributed at a one-to-one ratio, meaning one clean syringe for every used syringe returned. Further, Health Right distributes unopened packs of 10 syringes and has started rounding down, meaning, for example, 13 used syringes returned are traded for 10 new syringes.
The numbers reflect the impacts of these state and local efforts.
In 2022, the program handed out 612,744 syringes and received 484,960 back (79%).
In 2023, the program distributed 398,400 syringes and collected 306,165 (77%).
Through nine months in 2024, 186,580 syringes were provided and 179,573 were taken in (94%).
The commission is requesting Health Right provide monthly breakdowns in terms of needles distributed and returned. The body would also like the nonprofit to indicate, if possible, if any of the returned syringes were turned in by community members following cleanup efforts and other activities.
The commissioners said their requests are reflective of conversations with experts in medicine, addiction and public health and not an effort to critique Health Right’s efforts to address overdose deaths and the spread of disease in the community.
It’s been noted that the total annual cost of the LIGHT program, which is funded through the CDC as well as national agencies like AIDS United, NASTAD and Gilead Pharmaceuticals, is a fraction of the cost Medicaid would pay to treat a single case of HIV.
There are currently no known HIV cases in Monongalia County tied to dirty needles, according to information shared during the Dec. 3 meeting of Morgantown City Council.
“This is not an easy subject … It almost sounds counterintuitive, that we’d be in favor of a program that hands needles out to people so they can do drugs,” Sikora said, later adding, “But this program, as unsightly as it may appear, it does, the statistics do prove that it does keep those costs down.”
Ultimately, the commissioners said the program, while uncomfortable to discuss, is a net benefit to the community.
“I struggle with a lot of these programs. I feel at some point, are we attracting people to this town for the services we offer and not just servicing those who are already in this area … But you offer to those in need what you can. I think the center at Hazel’s House of Hope and Health Right do as good a job of that as anyone around,” Commissioner Jeff Arnett said. “I think it’s a necessary program. Again, I struggle with it as well. The alternative of not having a program, I don’t think is feasible for this community.”
