HOLYOKE — Since opening in 2012, Tapestry Health’s needle exchange program has served a rising number of intravenous drug users, particularly in the past year when visits to its Holyoke clinic soared.
In 2015, the agency’s Main Street clinic in Holyoke saw 2,127 individuals who visited the clinic on 6,005 occasions.
The number of visitors represents a 116 percent increase over the previous year when 985 people used the clinic 3,235 times, according to figures provided by the agency.
During the same time, the number of syringes coming in and out of the clinic also rose substantially.
In 2015, the clinic distributed 106,705 clean syringes and took in 122,013 dirty ones. In the previous year, those figures were both in the 48,000-range.
“I was absolutely dumbfounded when I saw the numbers,” Tim Purington, Tapestry’s director of harm reduction services said. “I didn’t expect that much growth in a year.”
In addition to providing sterile needles to injection drug users, the clinics provide overdose prevention education and trainings on naloxone, a drug that counters opioid overdoses, as well as health screenings, referrals for care and counseling.
Tapestry is also engaged in outreach on the streets, safe syringe disposal and maintains hotlines. The agency also conducts syringe retrieval, and organized a needle retrieval event in Holyoke on Saturday.
The needle exchange program in Northampton opened in 1995, to help stem the spread of the AIDS-causing virus HIV and hepatitis C among intravenous drug users.
The clinic began exchanging clean needles for dirty ones, but has expanded over two decades into a broader health services, education and training program that today focuses heavily on reducing the number of opioid overdose deaths, both in Northampton and Holyoke.
The Northampton clinic has seen a much more stable number of visitors and needle exchanges than Holyoke in recent years, in large part because it much more established in the community, according to Purington.
“The word is getting out, people are trusting us,” Purington said. “I think the problem (opioid epidemic) has been growing, too.”
“In Holyoke, it’s been very much a growing issue, and as we earn the trust of the people we’re trying to serve and our reputation gets out among users, that’s how word spreads,” he added.
The distribution of overdose-reversing drug naloxone, commonly known as Narcan, has become an increasingly important part of the clinic’s work as new visitors arrive at the clinics daily looking for Narcan.
For all of its work exchanging clean needles for dirty ones, and providing safe kits for intravenous drug use, such as cotton filters, tourniquets, alcohol swabs and saline, one of its core missions could end under a Hampden Superior Court ruling in March.
The ruling ordered Tapestry Health to stop distributing hypodermic syringes and needles in Holyoke within 120 days, declaring the agency did not receive proper approval from the City Council when it opened the program in 2012.
The decision was the result of a lawsuit filed by the council against the mayor and Board of Health after they approved the clinic.
Holyoke has a history of not supporting a needle exchange program in the city, with the council voting in 1996 and 2001 against one, while residents voted 4,549-2,495 against implementing a needle exchange program on a nonbinding ballot question in 2001.
The recent decision by Hampden Superior Court Judge Mark Mason provides the council with an opportunity to vote on approving or ending the service within 120 days and it does not affect the other health, educational and training services provided at Tapestry’s clinic, which remains open on Main Street.
Experts on needle exchanges say the idea of shutting off so many people to clean needles runs counter to a movement afoot in the country to support the exchanges.
Congress recently overturned a ban on using federal money to support funding for needle exchange programs, which the president backed. The money cannot be used for syringes, but to support the many services run by such programs.
“It’s really about keeping the community safe and it’s been shown to be cost effective,” said Steffanie A. Strathdee, associate dean of Global Health Sciences at the University of California San Diego Department of Medicine. “It’s that hand that’s attached to the needle that really draws people into services and I think that’s something a lot of people don’t understand.
“It can save not only their lives but the lives of people around them. I’ve seen it happen, and it’s a remarkable thing.”
Strathdee, who has been studying the work of needle exchanges since the late 1980s, including in Canada, Mexico and abroad, said people are going to inject drugs regardless of whether clean needles are accessible to them.
“There’s no evidence that needle exchanges have negative societal effects or encourage drug users to inject more drugs or encourage people to start injecting,” Strathdee said.
When presented with the figures by the Gazette, Strathdee said the numbers of people using Tapestry’s needle exchange clinic in Holyoke sounded like high volume for a city its size.
“It makes me shudder to think all those people are going to be turned away and pick up dirty needles on the street,” she said.
State Rep. Aaron Vega, D-Holyoke, a former city councilor, has long supported the needle exchange.
He said he understands and respects the legal process that resulted in the court order last month, even though he supports the distribution of clean needles.
The Holyoke City Council has not announced whether it plans to discuss or vote on Tapestry’s needle exchange clinic on Main Street. Meantime, Mayor Alex B. Morse vowed last month to appeal the court ruling.
“I hope the City Council will hold a public hearing, hear testimony from both sides and vote,” Vega said. “This is a public safety issue. We need to continue to be strong on the public safety aspect, but also recognize public health.”
Staff Writer Dan Crowley can be reached at dcrowley@gazettenet.com.