By Rafael Torruella | Executive Director
At Intercambios Puerto Rico we continue to serve the island's easter section most marginalized and socially disenfranchised individuals and communities. Slowly but surely this small organization of health professionals has become a harm reduction multiservice hub. We started as a small syringe exchange program to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis-C founded by volunteers and people who used drugs. We quickly moved to prevent opioid overdoses (before it was a popular intervention) and with time we have grown to provide case management, nurse care, social interventions, peer-education, and patient navigation through the cumbersome healthcare system on the island. More recently the provision of mental health services was added to our offerings. We are now happy to inform that we have a new Medical Doctor (MD) on staff which specializes in street medicine and deploying his services in both our brick-and-mortar location and our mobile unit ("La Movil"). Our new MD works alongside our behavioral health staff to deliver high-quality health services in multiple communities on the easter section of the island. And, of course, all via a harm reduction perspective, which means we do not turn anyone away, don't judge who you are or how you show up to our service locations, and work from where the participants “is at” physically and psychologically.
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