19More help to get treatment. More information. More trained staff in drug abuse tohelp us get off it quicker. (24 year old male, Greater Glasgow)Improve the privacy within the pharmacy. (38 year old male, Greater Glasgow)Better privacy. (42 year old male, Greater Glasgow)More private area – can be embarrassing – everyone can see you are an addict.(37 year old male, Greater Glasgow)Open more days. (35 year old male, Lanarkshire)Opening times – Sunday opening would be good. (36 year old male, GreaterGlasgow)For the most part, however, the comments were mostly very positive.Everything is great. (38 year old male, Greater Glasgow)Quite content. Good staff. (46 year old male, Greater Glasgow)Happy with the way things are. (30 year old male, Greater Glasgow)Everything is brand new. (31 year old male, Greater Glasgow)It’s great the way it is. (37 year old male, Greater Glasgow)Everything is brilliant. (38 year old female, Greater Glasgow)<strong>The</strong> staff are really friendly. Everything is brand new. (26 year old male, GreaterGlasgow)I think it is great here, brilliant. (19 year old female, Lanarkshire)This is one of the best needle exchanges. Nice people. (52 year old male,Lanarkshire)It’s a great chemist. (23 year old male, Greater Glasgow)It’s really good here. (22 year old female, Greater Glasgow)Everyone here [in the needle exchange] is great. It’s really good what they do –giving out all this stuff for free. (21 year old male, Lanarkshire)I think it’s great what they’re doing – great that they’re helping us. (26 year oldmale, Lanarkshire)It ce rta inly seems tha t most IDUs fully appre cia te the pro visions and se rvice a vailable tothem at the needle exchange. More importantly, however, has the provision of the singleuse citric acid sachets actually led to an increase in the number of visits IDUs are makingto the needle exchange? As the sachets have only been provided since December 2001 inGreater Glasgow and March 2002 in Lanarkshire, it is difficult to yet gauge the full extentof any impact on the number of visits being made to needle exchanges. <strong>The</strong> data availableshows that while the number of client visits vary from month to month, there has been ageneral increase in the number of visits being made to needle exchanges in GreaterGlasgow and Lanarkshire since the single use citric acid sachets were introduced. At oneLanarkshire exchange, the number of visits being made by IDUs, and in particular maleIDUs, to the needle exchange has increased from 100 during the period of January toMarch 2002, to 132 during April to June 2002, and most recently 158 during July toSeptember 2002. Similarly, there have been small but noticeable increases in the numberof visits being made by IDUs to an exchange in Motherwell and almost all the otherpharmacy exchanges in Lanarkshire and Greater Glasgow over the months following theintro duction of the single use citric a cid sa che ts. Ane cdo ta lly, it appea rs tha t the pro visionof the sachets has had a positive effect on the frequency with which IDUs have been usingthe needle exchange services. Though, of course, it is impossible to know for sure if this
20rise in the numbe r o f visits is sole ly rela ted to the introduction o f the single use citric a cidsachets or if other factors have been involved.
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