BACKGROUND: Finnish aid extends to three parts of St. Petersburg
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By Lasse Kerkelä
The goal of the Finnish project is to set up treatment groups similar to Finland's A-Clinics in three neighbourhoods of St. Petersburg. The groups include a doctor, a nurse, a social worker, and a psychiatrist.
The treatment group in Krasnogvardeisk, a district with more than 330,000 inhabitants, has referred customers to a drug rehabilitation hospital, an AIDS centre, a rehabilitation centre for young people, and for interviews with labour officials. Many have regular discussions with psychiatrists.
The patients are expected to have occasional discussions with a member of the treatment group. So far most of the 117 patients have availed themselves of this consultation help only once or twice.
Many of the customers with HIV have not gone into treatment, even though they have been given referrals.
The average age of those in treatment is 25.
In May the activities of Krasnogvardeisk will expand to the Kalininski neighbourhood, and a year later it is to start in a third, so far unnamed part of the city.
The trainers of the Kotka A-Clinic operation have met members of the Krasnogvardeisk group - Team A - every few months at a meetings held in both St. Petersburg and in Finland. Starting in May, Team A will take part in the training of the Kalininski group.
The Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs is providing EUR 150,000 annually for the project - the same project operates in a somewhat different form in Petrozavodsk in Russian Karelia, where the aim is to help homeless people with substance abuse problems.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 22.3.2005
More on this subject:
 St. Petersburg addicts offered Finnish-style rehab
Helsingin Sanomat
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