Yuliya Georgieva Initiative for Health Foundation
The first thing that is important to me, also for the people who do whatever we do,
is that today is the 1st of December.
First of December, in our job is the day in which
we have to do our self-assessment over the stuff we have been working during the past year.
This is the World Aids Day as all of you know,
this is the day in which...
(Because my job mainly is to keep those people from getting AIDS/HIV)
this is the day where I have to realize what I've done this year.
Yet, for another year in a row I know that I did nothing.
For yet another year I know that everything in this field
has been actually done by my clients,
by the ordinary people,
and exactly because of that I want to say thank you to all of you here in the room,
that have used a condom this year.
Maybe, some of you this year,
in this way, by using maybe the simplest thing in the world,
probably had broken the spread of this infection. This is terribly important
Additionally, today I want to thank all my clients
who did not get infected with HIV.
Actually, this shows us that they may be very cool people.
In addition, I want to thank to the ones, who despite being infected made
everything possible to be as much as safer for the others.
Moreover, I want to remember with good the ones we unfortunately have lost over the past year.
So, what is an outreach?
The easiest way to explain it,
when I am not in mood of explaining it in details what exactly it is,.
I say: "Well, I give needles and syringes to people, who really need them".
Now, do not imagine me while passing across Rakovska street
I see someone and say "Hey, come here, you look like a drug addict.
Here a needle and a syringe for you!". No, I do not do that.
Two days ago, our organisation had its 15th anniversary and luckily,
during these years, we gained great experience
we know where to find these people, we know how to contact with them,
and we know what their needs are.
Except giving them needles and syringes,
which actually is much easier to explain, but it not the whole truth,
we also organize many other activities.
We perform testing for blood-borne diseases.
We carry out case management of people who already got infected with HIV.
We do various education seminars in prisons, also outside prisons.
We are somehow trying (at least we try) to change legislation regarding drug policies;
summon press conferences...
We are trying in every manner to change the attitude of the public opinion towards the people who are using drugs.
What's the point of all these things?
Personally, for me, because I can talk only about my feelings, the argument is as it follows.
Personally, the health-related side of the problems is clear. It is crucially important and extremely serious.
What more important for me is that I know all these people.
It is important, that I know that these people are exactly like us.
They have a health problem, they have done mistakes in their life,
but as people, as beliefs, dreams and goals in their life, they are all like us.
Right now, I want to give you an example of the difference between us and them.
Literally, couple of days ago
I've met a girl, which when I was distributing needles on the street,
she came to us and stayed for two hours.
She needed just to talk with someone.
She needed to share with somebody that she succeeded to fight her heroin addiction.
That she managed to register for a methadone programme.
She made a great step in her life
and that practically she doesn't have anybody to share these things with.
Additionally, she was a bit pissed at the world,
she was also a bit disappointed,
because exactly at the moment, when she and her boyfriend
decided to make this huge step in their lives
and start a treatment,
her boyfriend suddenly dies.
Without a particular reason. Into the bus...
The diagnosis is a heart failure.
Actually, this is precious in my work.
This contact and the fact that these people really trust us
and that they really begin, through us, to believe
that there is point to cotinine and there is a reason to fight.
Another reason to do what I am doing is a guy,
who last Friday, if my memory does not lie to me. No, I lie, it was this Wednesday.
So, this Wednesday in the prison he told me that he is HIV-positive,
and he was infected in the prison.
I assume, that you don`t know, and there is no reason to know it,
in the Bulgarian prisons, as in all prisons in the world, there are terribly high rates of drug dealing at one side.
But, there aren't any tools to inject these drugs.
Therefore, the thing that he claims has happened sounds very plausible to happen.
And this is another of our causes, a very big one.
So, with knowing many cases like these,
I thereby share with you only two random cases form the last couple of days.
I know quite many people with such stories.
On average we meet around 4000 individual clients.
I have always wondered why people really hate them.
Generally speaking, at the moment you start a conversation with someone about this topic
the reaction is "Hey, enough with them... these junkies, suckers. They do not worth a penny".
I work with addicted people since 2003 and I work in the foundation since 2004.
I have always wondered
how come that any other person who has any other physiological problem is not hated
and rejected so much from the society, as the drug addicted persons are.
Even at this moment, by the way,
when I was checking the causes of people participating here,
I didn't see any that want to fight for the rights of these people.
These are problems for which we practically do not think every day.
Of course it is great to take care of children,
or someone who seems innocent...
And this is the reason exactly for which I want to tell you
that the people who have developed addiction are not guilty for that.
If 300 000 individuals, what is the official statistics in Bulgaria,
have tried and used drugs,
only about 10% of them develop and addiction.
An addiction is a disease.
So, why people really hate addicted people.
Last year I had the chance to attain
a great human rights and drug policies seminar
and at that seminar I get to know the answer.
The simple answer contains in the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961,
which say that
"addiction to narcotic drugs constitutes a serious evil for the individual
and is fraught with social and economic danger to mankind".
Interesting fact is that, the word 'evil'
has never been used in the convention against the genocide,
the convection against the apartheid,
in the convention against slavery.
As far as I know this word is not used anywhere and never at other occasion,
but in convention related to drug use.
Of course, this convention is ratified
almost 51 years ago
and all the governments had started to educate us
that drug addicted people are something very bad;
that they are evil and that we have to hate them.
The negative results of this convention are several,
but I will talk about only one of them which really hurts me.
And this is the enormous stigma
which is drawn upon these people.
What is the stigma?
Very often we use words such as stigma, discrimination and so on.
But what is hidden behind this word?
Actually the stigma is an absolutely irrational thing.
The Stigma gives us ready answer to every question.
We do not need to think upon a problem, we just know the thing the way it is.
The stigma gives us a perfect enemy.
"Here, they are evil. If the UN states that they are evil,
ergo they are evil".
This actually is the stigma,
but the scariest part of it is that the stigma deviate perceptions
without even observing a behaviour, which would not have been approved.
For example, if we know about a person that he is a drug user,
that is it, he is a drug user.
The fact that he works, pays his bills, has a wonderful family,
pays his taxes like all of us, is totally unimportant.
Stigma is so deeply rooted in our brains
that we do not have the power to go against.
If addicts are bad, this is it, they are bad
(give me some water, please... Excuse me... )
They are bad because UN told us they are bad.
They are bad because our legislation tells is they are bad.
So what we have to do with them?
What we are supposed to do;
we have to react somehow, but how to react?
We either sentence them
or say 'well, someone has to help them'.
How we sentence them?
Every individual who has or holds any drug,
according to the Bulgarian legislation is sentenced between one and five years of imprisonment.
Imagine now a person, which is addicted to a certain drug.
Imagine how he has not possessed the questioned drug.
This would probably illustrate that all drug users in Bulgaria shall be in jail.
The truth is that nowadays there are around 10000 imprisoned in Bulgaria,
20% of them are addicted.
Of those 20% continue to use drugs there
and this is important to notice.
And if everyone gave their blessing by saying "Let's sentence them" -
the law, our parents for about 50 years (including my grandparents had been telling me that drugs are evil),
what will the normal fellow-
the "normal fellow" - think about drugs?
I recall the case of Yordan Opits that was on the heat last summer.
The 'Opits' case which unexpectedly, within two days
organised unseen citizen movements in support of his actions,
because he is iconographer and saint man,
despite of the fact that he calmly shot a young man.
Why this happened?
Because the young man was addicted.
When we talk about that "someone has to help them"
it becomes even more difficult and scary.
For a great regret even the people, who are professionals in the field,
who really can do something for these people
are still neglected in the public domain in general.
Almost no one can right now recall the name of a good medical program designed for drug addicts.
Anyhow, we still talk about helping them, but let someone else to do that.
I guess that all of you have heard of the man Kachakliev,
who had built two drug community services.
They have worked for a long time, there were some guys working there,
built him some buildings,
in practice those were a work camps,
but in any manner they weren't drug addiction treatment programs.
What happened in the efforts of "Let's someone else help them"
was that in 2003 there was a homicide case of a boy.
He was murdered in a particularly atrocious manner,
and after the statement
that he was weak physically and mentally, extremely abstinent
by the other individuals that were there to receive their treatment.
The victim has been bound to the celling by his hands and feet.
Moreover, in order not to move a lot he was also tied by his penis.
For a period he has been lynched
with an old window frame.
Naturally he didn't survive after that.
What happened after,
were that the people who had done that to him,
5 persons were also there for a drug treatment,
were sentenced for in total of 57 years.
Kachakliev
who was the manager of this community
and practically was supposed to be responsible for all this did not receive any imprisonment,
he even did not have a public reprimand.
I think that they just shut down the communities,
and this is how they are helped, by running away from responsibility.
Another case worth sharing, the so called prof. Hiller.
Quite funny, at least for me and not with major damages,
if we don't count financial damages as such.
By the way, do we have smokers here, I am sure, we have smokers..
Well, if you want to quit smoking
he will heal you once and forever only by the means one injection for 400 leva (ci. 200 euro).
You will never have an attachment to tobacco and you will ever never think about smoking.
The same prof. Hiller wants around 5600 leva (2.800 eur) if someone has problem with heroine.
Obviously, this is deeply funny
and luckily his methods are prohibited now,
although he was circulating in military medical centre by offering his services.
Other things, I have found when I was browsing for this presentation,
were some methods to heal your addiction,
such as a tool named "Antey-21",
which heals with pyramids and something like holy water.
Another device called "Balance",
costing around 600 leva (300 eur)
you can heal any addiction at home, naturally without any side effects.
Allow me to be serious again
and tell you that the paths 'to help them'
do not include only funny tools and devices from which someone gains money.
Sadly, since 2009 the union of Gastroenterologists in Bulgaria
banned hepatitis C treatment of drug addicted individuals
who are in methadone programs.
For all of us, it is clear that, hepatitis C is the infection that mostly affects these people.
Practically, those people do not have the right to be treated!
The question is what is going to happen? What can be done?
I am hassling here, there is no money for effective treatments, some criminal make money from it..
But what really can be done!
We work seriously in this field;
with the hope that first we might change the legislation.
Because the repression again the people who use drugs,
their imprisonment by no means assists their reintegration in the society.
It does not help them to receive fair treatment.
Ultimately we do not put diabetics behind the bars,
despite that their disease -- diabetes is also a chronic relapsing disease.
Overall, it becomes clear the financial resources of a prison
shall be redirected for effective treatment programs.
It is clear that the people who are now supposed to be imprisoned
should have the right to choose a treatment or a prison.
It is clear to do a simple calculation
calculation how it costs this for us.
Each person in prison now costs around 500-600 leva (max 300 eur) monthly,
and this is only for his prison cell.
The most expensive therapeutic treatment
is about 600 leva (300 eur).
The treatment of a drug addicted individual in a therapeutic community,
and this is based on the most costly and extreme cases,
continues around 9 months.
The cheapest way is about 1000-1200 leva (ci. 600 eur) annually.
Therefore, instead of paying 12.000.000 leva,
calculated as 500*2000,
to keep some people with some chronically essential needs in the prison,
we for the same amount of 12.000.000 leva can maintain so many services that practically nobody can utilize them all.
Finally yet importantly, another thing that any of us can do
and it deeply depends on our perception
is to stop repeating the mantra of "Leave these junkies on their own".
To stop allowing this ignorance to be in our surrounding,
because those people, like us,
have the same needs,
and yes, at this very moment they starve for help.
Why we cannot give them that help?
Thank you!