A new Treasurer, three new board members and a revised program of health and wellbeing services for the next financial year were announced by Healthy Communities today, nearly a year since all the organisation’s Queensland Health funding was controversially cut late last year.

The bold changes come in the wake of industry and community concern for a lack of mental, physical and emotional assistance for the LGBT community, and offer the first optimistic turn-around for the organisation since the cuts were announced.

Healthy Communities welcomes media reports that rapid HIV tests will be available from sexual health clinics from June this year.

Healthy Communities already provides rapid HIV tests for the LGBT community from our weekly ‘Testing Point’ clinic on Tuesday evenings 6-8pm, staffed by volunteer nurses, doctors and peer educators.

“Rapid HIV testing has been available in many other countries for well over 5 years” said Paul Martin, Executive Director.  “The introduction of rapid testing to Queensland is long overdue and welcome.”

Healthy Communities welcomes the announcement by Queensland Health that additional funding will be provided to Queensland Positive People (QPP) for HIV prevention and awareness workers.

QPP plays an important role in helping people living with HIV prevent transmission to others and raises awareness of the impact of stigma and discrimination.  Additional capacity to assist in this role is welcome.

ONLINE TICKET SALES HAVE NOW CLOSED BUT YOU CAN STILL GET ENTRY AT THE DOOR ON SUNDAY NIGHT.

Healthy Communities Discusses Risk Reduction

Healthy Communities has released a discussion paper on Risk Reduction Strategies used by gay and other men who have sex with men, to guide HIV prevention efforts in Queensland.

The paper summarises the evidence of effectiveness for common Risk Reduction Strategies and outlines how Healthy Communities will approach working with gay men on this issue.

“Behavioural research shows that more gay men are sometimes having sex without condoms, but that a lot of the time they are taking other measures to reduce their risk” said Paul R Martin, Executive Director.

“Condoms remain the safest and easiest form of safe sex, especially for casual sex.  However in situations where men do not use condoms, there are still things they can do to reduce, but not eliminate risk.”

More PEP Needed in HIV Prevention

Healthy Communities’ Men4Men project has released a new awareness campaign about PEP (post-exposure prophylaxis) and calls on Queensland Health to ensure better access, especially in emergency departments.

Healthy Communities has established the ‘Truth Watch’ page to respond to the ongoing misinformation about Healthy Communities being spread by Minister Springborg and printed in QNews.  On this page we will respond to any allegations honestly and wherever possible provide documentary evidence to back up our position.

Condoman Comic Book 2 - Now Available

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Comic Book 2

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