A lack of drug and alcohol services on Canberra's northside has led one of the city's key front-line organisations to set up shop in a prominent Belconnen spot.
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Many of the capital's drug and alcohol services key players turned up to the opening of the Canberra Alliance for Harm Minimisation and Advocacy's new digs late last week.
CAHMA and its indigenous-specific program, The Connection, recently moved out to Belconnen when its lease on its Civic office ran out, manager Chris Gough said, to help fill a gap in service delivery in the north.
He said while it mean they were no longer to be found in the city, there was a huge need for their services in Belconnen.
The alliance helps injecting drug users find ways to minimise their harm, as well as delivers what was an Australia-first program training people to use naloxone, which can help prevent opioid overdoses.
Mr Gough said there were currently no street-level services that people with hepatitis, injecting drug users and others could walk in for "a cup of coffee and a chat about their health".
He said the population growth in north Canberra particularly showed there was increasing demand for the services CAHMA offered.
Representatives across the health sector attended the opening, including senior ACT Health staffers, deputy chief minister Yvette Berry, MLA Chris Steel and former ACT Supreme Court Justice Richard Refshauge.
It was timed to help highlight the difficulties faced by some of the community's most vulnerable people, the 7000-odd Canberrans suffering with Hepatitis B or C, for World Hepatitis Day.
Hepatitis ACT chief John Didlick said the official World Health Organisation day this year was focussed on "elimination" of Hepatitis globally and the time had finally come where there was now a global, national and local strategy to help eliminate the liver-destroying disease.
He said while recent advances in treatments had helped end the suffering for some, it was an ongoing effort to ensure people stayed "Hep-free".
Mr Didlick said it was also estimated about 700 Canberrans had undiagnosed Hepatitis C and up to 1500 capital residents had undiagnosed Hepatitis B, and more work needed to be done to fully eliminate the disease.
Winnunga Nimityjah Aboriginal Health Service's Dr Nadeem Siddiqui also spoke of how the rise in treatments, and the Winnunga "liver health clinic", had helped to turn "tears of sadness into tears of joy" when clients completed a full course.
He said he had also witnessed hepatitis taking a deep psychological toll on Winnunga clients, including one woman who had been successfully treated after years of stopping her children wearing her clothes, in fear of passing on the virus.
CAHMA's new office is in the Northpoint Plaza on Chandler Street, Belconnen, opposite Westfield Shopping Centre.