Aim
The purpose of the Syringe management plan is to protect the social community against injury by syringe and help people manage syringe in proper manner. According to the research, there were 494 council syringe hotline calls during the 2008 to 2010 in Footscray, and students always find out syringe in Footscray Primary school (Cannon, A 2011). Therefore syringe management plan can increase the awareness of using syringe safety and reduce the injury of syringe using.
Objectives
1) Provide free syringes in 100% of health centers/pharmacies within the Maribyrnong city by June 2011.
2) Install 50 safe disposal containers only for syringes in all the Maribyrnong shopping centers and another 50 allocated for use in public washrooms and highly populated areas by August 2011.
3) Provide 5,000 safe disposal containers to the community's individuals and business' in Maribyrnong for a small fee by January 2012. Pharmacies will act as distribution channels.
4) Ensure that maintenance and emptying of public disposal containers occurs at least once a day. This plan will roll out immediately from when these facilities are installed.
5) Provide booklets to the community, informing about the importance of disposing syringes. Beginning in May 2011. Effectiveness will be monitored through a survey before the booklets are distributed and again 3 months later. A 25% increase is expected at the time of the second survey.
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Specific
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Measurable
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Attainable/Realistic
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Timely
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1
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Free syringes in health centres/pharmacies
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100% of health centres/pharmacies
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Syringes are relatively inexpensive and delivery is local and centralised
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June 2011 is the deadline for the beginning of this part of the plan.
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2
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50 Safe disposal containers in shopping centre
50 safe disposal containers in public washrooms and highly populated areas.
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100 containers in total located at every shopping precinct, public washroom etc.
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The safe disposal containers do not cost a lot to install, are unobtrusive to current facilities and there is already a workforce that can be commissioned to monitor them.
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All containers should be installed by August 2011
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3
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Safe disposal containers for business' and individuals within the Maribyrnong City council
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5,000 containers will be produced
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Containers are not expensive to produce and a small fee will be charged for those wishing to receive one.
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All pharmacies will have containers available by January 2012
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4
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The emptying of all public disposal containers
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100% of containers need to be emptied and/or checked once a day
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There is currently staff available to complete this job (maintenance staff at shopping centres, council workers etc.) so there is no need to establish a new team of people and this is only a very small addition to their current job.
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This needs to begin as soon as the containers are installed.
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5
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Informative booklets/brochure outlining the importance of safe disposal of syringes for the community.
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Through surveys the effectiveness can be measured. A 25% increase is expected between surveys.
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The brochures can be readily available near the safe disposal containers and at pharmacies. They are cheap to make and don't require a lot of (if any) extra facilities.
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The distribution of these brochures will begin in May 2011.
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