Career Medical Officer - Sydney
“The Kirketon Road Centre (KRC) is a primary health care facility located in Kings Cross, which is involved in the prevention, treatment and care of HIV/AIDs and other transmissible infections among ‘at risk’ young people, sex workers and injecting drug users. It also operates a low threshold methadone access program (MAP) which targets street-based opioid dependent injecting drug users (IDUs) who have had difficulty accessing or being retained in other methadone treatment programs. This position is responsible for the provision of day-to-day, quality medical care for KRC clients within the framework of primary health care as well assessment and treatment of marginalised IDUs.
Career Medical Officer :up to 36 hours/ Week Permanent P/T
Essentials:
Medical Practitioner fully registered in NSW At least two years relevant postgraduate clinical experience Commitment to harm minimisation philosophies
Desirables
Postgraduate training and or experience in primary care, alcohol and other drugs, sexual health, HIV medicine, women’s health, adolescent health
Contact: Dr Craig Rodgers 02 93602766,
Full Details on
http://www7.health.nsw.gov.au/healthjobs/Default.cfm?ID=1234&ID_HJJobs=5 “
Drug Free Australia Watch adds further content
DFA Watch has added a ‘What’s New?’ page to the main site:
http://members.westnet.com.au/paulgall/whats_new.html
News of substance - drugs in the worldwide news
1. Surrey Now (Canada) - No room for ideology at Insite. “The clock is ticking on the future of one of Canada’s most important and unique attempts to deal with drug addiction, and perhaps that’s a good thing. It may very well be good that the federal government is sending signals it will soon no longer support Vancouver’s supervised injection facility (Insite). Getting Ottawa out of the picture may actually create some certainty and stability for the controversial facility in Vancouver’s notorious Downtown Eastside.”
2. icWales (UK) - Jamie’s Addiction Story. “AT the height of his addiction to heroin, Jamie was spending over £400 a week to get the drug that his body craved. He was just 15, still at school, and shoplifting daily to finance both his habit, and that of his girlfriend Sarah (name changed to protect her identity). “I was doing about half a gram a day,” says Jamie, now 17.
“That was costing me £30 and then Sarah was using the same amount. Your whole life is about getting money to get your next bag.”
3. The Hindu (India) - UN joins OPEC partner to curb HIV among drug users. “The United Nations anti-narcotics agency has joined forces with the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) in a bid to rein in the spread of HIV among drug users.”
4. Etalaat (India) - Conflict blamed for drug addiction among women in JK. “The armed conflict in Kashmir has eaten into the very vitals of the society and it is one of the main reasons for drug addiction among women, according to a study. “With search operations, crackdowns, firing incidents and grenade blasts being a regular feature, the women folk were all the time worried about the safety and security of their dear ones. Taking to drugs in the form of cough syrups and other sedatives was the only option left for them to come out of the mental tension,” Dr Ghulam Nabi Wani, founder HNSS De-addiction Centre, Khanyar, who carried out the study told Etalaat on Wednesday.”
5. Wall Street Journal - New Version Of OxyContin Raises Concern. “A Food and Drug Administration panel expressed deep concerns about a purported abuse-resistant form of the painkiller OxyContin, saying there is a “striking” lack of data about the drug’s abuse-prevention qualities. “I’m fascinated with the poor scientific rigor” of the data presented by Purdue Pharma LP, maker of OxyContin, FDA panel member Jeffrey R. Kirsch said. “It’s almost insulting.”
6. Islamic Republic News (Iran) - Number of drug-related deaths up in Germany in 2007: report. “The number of drug-related deaths rose by 98 people or 7.6 percent to reach 1,394 last year, according to the annual report released Monday by the government’s anti-drug commissioner Sabine Baetzing.”
7. The Age - Barnes’ binge: cheap wine and 10 grams of cokemebeli. “JIMMY Barnes can’t believe he lived through a death-defying drug-and-booze binge, which, by rights, should have killed him. The rock icon has revealed the extent of his drug use, in which he consumed a daily cocktail of cocaine, ecstasy and vodka for four years.”
8. The New York Times - Reports Find Racial Gap in Drug Arrests. “More than two decades after President Ronald Reagan escalated the war on drugs, arrests for drug sales or, more often, drug possession are still rising. And despite public debate and limited efforts to reduce them, large disparities persist in the rate at which blacks and whites are arrested and imprisoned for drug offenses, even though the two races use illegal drugs at roughly equal rates.”
9. The Ottawa Citizen - An addict’s White knight. “Ottawa police chief Vern White demonstrated leadership this month by travelling to Toronto and personally making the case for proper drug treatment facilities in Ottawa. In the policing world, there are probably still a few old-timers who think substance abuse is mainly a law enforcement issue and that the principal problem facing drug addicts is a flawed moral character. Chief White, it appears, is not one of them. His efforts to bring residential drug treatment services to Ottawa suggests he understands that addicts might need help more than handcuffs.”
Social Worker - St George Hospital (NSW)
“South Eastern Sydney Illawarra Area Health Service
Applications are invited for the position of Social Worker (level 2) attached to a dynamic Hepatology dept at St George Hospital, Kogarah.
The Social worker is responsible for providing assessment, management and evaluation of developed strategies to people who present in crisis, live with complex psycho-social issues within a chronic disease model of care. The social worker will work both autonomously and within a multi disciplinary team.
Position Title
Social Worker Level 2
Employment Type
Temporary Part-time
Location
St. George Hospital
Essentials
1. Post graduate social worker experience
2. Demonstrated interpersonal skills
3. Demonstrated communication skills
4. Demonstrated ability to work within a multi disciplinary team and autonomously
5. Computer literacy demonstrated by experience with Microsoft Word, Excel and electronic mailing
6. Experience working with people who have complex psycho-social needs
7. Experience working with people in crisis
8. Experience working with people living with a chronic illness
9. Demonstrated capacity to act as patient advocate
10. Demonstrated experience with government agencies such as CentreLink
Desirables
1. Experience working with people living with hepatitis C virus
2. Experience working in Alcohol and other Drug setting
3. Experience establishing support groups
Duration
Position is 24 hours per week for 12 months duration, with view to extend.
Contact Name For Position Enquiries
Suzanne Polis on (02) 9113 2407 or Suzanne.Polis@sesiahs.health.nsw.gov.au”
News of substance - drugs in the worldwide news
1. KGMB9.com (USA) - Drug Addiction: A Click Away? “Morphine, vicodin, oxycontin… It used to be the only way to buy these powerful drugs was at a pharmacy, with a valid prescription from a doctor.
Today more people are ordering narcotics on the Internet. Many online pharmaceutical sites are legal, meaning they require a signed prescription from a physician and proof of a legitimate medical problem.”
2. Ireland Online - Downey blames movie for addiction. “Former troubled actor Robert Downey Jr blames his role in 1980s cult film ‘Less Than Zero’ for fuelling his drug addiction.
The 43-year-old insists he only took drugs recreationally before he was cast as a cocaine addict in the 1987 film based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis.”
3. MovieWeb - Paramount to Develop Two Drug Memoirs as One. “Paramount is venturing into the world of drug addiction in a very unique way. According to Variety, the studio has acquired the memoirs Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction by David Sheff and Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines, by his son, Nick Sheff. Brad Pitt’s Plan B production company will also develop the project.”
4. The New Nation (Bangladesh) - ‘Drug addiction a silent killer’. “The two World Wars did not claim so many lives, as did drug addiction, the Adviser for Ministry of Primary and Mass Education and Culture, Women and Children Affairs Rasheda K Chowdhury said. She was speaking as Chief Guest a discussion meeting on “Misuse of Drugs and Addiction to It” at Viqarunnessa Noon School and College auditorium yesterday in the city.”
5. Today’s Zaman (Turkey) - Drug addiction in spotlight, threat more serious than imagined. “Though drug addiction is considered a relatively minor problem in Turkey, figures indicate that heroin and cocaine addictions are on the rise, with experts cautioning the dangerous trend may continue. “Studies and statistical data indicate Turkey is one of many countries that have suffered from problems related to drugs and drug addiction. Indeed, this problem is greater and more serious than one might imagine,” said Green Crescent Fight against Alcohol and Cigarette Abuse Chairman Mustafa Necati Özfatura.”
6. Globe and Mail (Canada) - Picking at the scab of meth addiction. “As Cranked opens, Stan, a young hip-hop MC, is comparing the slow, lumbering zombies of old movies to the speedier ones of today’s horror flicks. To him, the modern running undead seem more realistic: “When you crave flesh … When it is the sole thing in the universe that you can focus on and you want it as bad as your next breath of air? Oh yeah, you will run.”
7. The Independent (UK) - Sex addiction: The facts from the fruity fiction. “Ah, sex. Our compulsion to reproduce, or to go through the motions of doing so, has a habit of getting people into trouble, especially if they are wealthy or powerful. The readiness with which men – it is usually men – with money or influence will turn aside from their business affairs to engage in extra-curricular dalliances is all too familiar. What we didn’t know, until recently, is that it may qualify as a medical disorder.”
8. The Canadian Press - Health crisis brewing in Vancouver before safe injection site opened: lawyer. ” A lawyer for a group that wants the federal government to keep a safe-injection site open in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside says a public health crisis was brewing in the area for more than a decade before the facility opened. Monique Pongracic-Speier told B.C. Supreme Court on Tuesday that injection drug use had become an epidemic in Canada’s poorest postal code and the site now provides an important health service.”