The replacement therapy office for the people with opioid dependency will be open in Belgorod-Dnestrovsk.

Now there is no more need for the patients with the drug dependency to travel daily to Odessa in order to get the replacement medications – all the necessary services of the replacement therapy now become available in the town (Belgorod-Dnestrovsk) on the base of the main city and regional Hospital.

On March 22, the head of the Hospital, Dmitri Desyatnik, signed the order to open the replacement therapy office on the base of the Hospital, starting by this action the replacement therapy in the town. This event is very important because it will tremendously increase the quality of the HIV services in the town and its region. Such reform of the HIV services became possible with the technical support of the pilot project of the USAid “The Sustainability of the HIV Services”, that started I 2016 and is aimed to create and sustain the trustful model of the HIV services on the local level – for the most victim parts of the society and people living with HIV.

Commenting his decision, Igor Desyatnik states: «Implementing the replacement therapy in the city is not an easy step. We made it only after a very long analysis of the documentation and receiving analytical data. Signing this order is the first step towards this change. We have to research all the reglamentitions and train the medical stuff as well as to provide and inhabit the office itself and to establish a system of storage and distributing of the medications. In any case we are upto make the RT program develop».

The head of the “Sustainability…” project, Natalia Kitsenko said, “This is a very big step our team was working for over 1 year to reach it. I would like to thank the head of the Hospital Igor Desyatnik for the great support in our common service – the possibility to open the replacement therapy office”

Iliya Podolyan, the HIV-consultant of the USAid added: “For a long time it has been an issue to open the RT office here in the city, and finally now we can estimate the decreasing of the HIV epidemic in the city as well as describing the crime rate. Now people with opioid dependency will be able to subscribe legal medications to be able to live normal life“.