Summary
ESPANOLA - Sheilah Galer is the addicts' best friend. They wave her down from the sidewalk, hug her like a sister and trade stories about a hospital visit, an arrest, a burial.
The white Dodge Sprinter she drives around Espanola and Chimay is unmarked, yet cops, emergency workers, counselors and addicts recognize that the new syringes and Narcan inside keep people from dying.See the full content of this document
Extract
A Safer Addiction
A social worker from Iowa, Galer now travels Northern New Mexico four times a week collecting used syringes with needles from heroin addicts and replacing them with new packages of syringes that can be used for the week-ahead high. The effort has curbed the hepatitis C virus, which is spread by infected blood through dirty needles. Someone with the virus, which often leads to liver failure, can continue infecting others for years before they are diagnosed.
On Tuesdays, Jeanne Block, a contract nurse for the state Health Department, travels with Galer down d...See the full content of this document
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