Expansion plans for drug site

DEMAND HAS ALREADY EXCEEDED EXPECTATIONS AT SUPERVISED CONSUMPTION SITE

The opioid crisis in Lethbridge is getting worse. As a result, demand for services at the City’s Supervised Consumption Site is exceeding expectations and expansion plans are now underway.

Council received an update from representatives of the Executive Leaders Coalition on Opioid Use on Monday during a Community Issues Committee meeting. The coalition is a broad-based local group formed in 2016 to respond to the rapidly growing opioid crisis.

Data from the first two months of operation at the SCS indicates by the end of April, 389 unique clients had registered to use the site and about 75 per cent have used it multiple times.

In all, there were 7,618 total visits in March and April — with 5,254 visits occurring in April.

Stacey Bourque, Executive Director for ARCHES, said the organization did not foresee the amount of demand for SCS services in such a short time.

“Although it doesn’t stop drug consumption, that’s (nearly) 8,000 uses that didn’t happen in the community,” she said.

To date, there have been 70 overdoses by clients using the facility but no fatalities because supervising medical staff successfully intervened.

The Lethbridge site averaged 175 visits per day in April. The peak number of visits in a single day to date is 231.

By comparison, the Calgary SCS site, which opened five months ago, is averaging 106 visits per day, and its busiest day to date has seen 143 visits.

There were 589 fentanyl overdose deaths across Alberta in 2017, an increase of 69 per cent from the total of 349 deaths in 2016. Eighteen fentanyl deaths occurred in Lethbridge in 2017.

The death rate in Lethbridge was the third-highest among Alberta cities at a rate of 19 deaths per 100,000 people.

In addition to fentanyl, the use of carfentanil, an opioid used by veterinarians on very large animals such as elephants, is more prominent in the past year.

A lethal batch of carfentanil is blamed for 42 overdoses that occurred over a single weekend in Lethbridge in late February.

Fire Chief Richard Hildebrand said the numbers of drug-related issues continue to grow for emergency responders.

“There’s no question the opioid issue is still at a crisis level in Lethbridge,” he said.

He added the SCS is not expected to eliminate the drug problem, but to provide options.

“For every overdose attended to in the (SCS) itself, there is one less we have to deal with on the street,” he said.

“The number and severity of events is difficult for our staff to deal with at times,” he said. “There’s no question that it takes a toll.”

Insp. Tom Ascroft of the Lethbridge Police Service said it is still too early for police to tell if the site has had a substantial impact on crime related to drug use, but he said anecdotally, there have been no reductions to property crime. He said ARCHES and LPS are trying to work with stakeholders in the direct vicinity of the SCS in order to address and mitigate their concerns.

“We’re aware that it’s going to be an area where there is some antisocial behaviour going on because of the nature of the population there,” said Ashcroft. “I think, in the long run, it’s a better strategy than just having it going on everywhere — library bathrooms, parks, and stuff like that. This is a much better way of controlling it.”

Waiting time for the SCS can be as much as 90 minutes, with up to 15 people waiting to use the facility.

“If someone is not feeling well and going through withdrawal symptoms, it can be very difficult for them just to sit and wait,” said Bourque.

As wait times increase, so does the likelihood that some clients will become desperate and leave the site to consume drugs elsewhere.

Bourque said four additional booths and another inhalation room are needed to meet demand, as well as 24-hour access for users.

“We’re looking at other options to provide the service in the community,” she said. Those options could include a temporary overdose prevention site to handle overflow, as well as expanding the existing facility.

Cities across the country have reached out to ARCHES in order to learn more about their service model — specifically for inhalation and application of wraparound support services.

“We’ve been contacted by almost every province to see how we’re doing it, what it looks like, what types of services we are providing, and if we can share the application.”

Bourque said there has been a drastic reduction in the number of needles distributed in the community as well — as much as 20,000 needles per month. She said ARCHES is now handing out between 13,000 and 15,000 needles, many of which are going out of Lethbridge to satellite facilities.

More information on the Executive Leaders Coalition on Opioid Use is available at: lethbridge.ca/OpioidCoalition

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