Australian doctors call for safe injecting room trial

AMA Victoria's president Stephen Parnis says they would save lives by reducing the number of drug overdoses and cut the number of ambulance call-outs and hospital admissions.

"Measures like this can prevent overdose and help control the spread of Hepatitis C, which is of increasingly high prevalence amongst Victorian drug-users," he said.

"Supervised injecting facilities have worked to reduce harm in Sydney's Kings Cross and we're hopeful they can do the same in Melbourne's drug hotspots."

There were more than 2,000 ambulance call-outs for heroin-related cases in Victoria in 2009/10.

The AMA says the statistics are cause for serious concern and point to the need for a new approach.

Under a trial, drug-users would get sterile injecting equipment and a way to safely dispose of it, help in case of an overdose, and medical, rehabilitation and counselling services.

A Victorian Government spokesman says it does not support injecting rooms.

"Our harm reduction priorities are focussed in other areas, including the significant expansion of pharmacotherapy services, with the doubling of the budget and expanding needle syringe programs in areas of particular need," he said.

The Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association's Sam Biondo has told ABC local radio that governments are risk-averse.

"They feel that if the community doesn't support it, then they will wear the backlash," he said.

"But what we're seeing in many places in Victoria is there's great support for these sorts of initiatives and the Government really does need to get real and start to reflect some of the sentiment on the ground.

"Certain governments have certain views about getting hard on drugs and getting hard on people that are breaking the law, but that approach has been well and truly shown to be a failure."

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