Two safeinjection sites to open ‘within weeks’
Two safe-injection sites will open in Montreal within “a matter of weeks,” Quebec’s public health minister said Friday.
Minister Lucie Charlebois told reporters Health Canada has given the green light to open two sites — one downtown and another in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve — where people can use intravenous drugs under medical supervision.
“I’m containing my emotions,” said Lucie Charlebois, whose announcement was met with raucous applause from outreach workers and doctors who’ve fought for years to get a safe-injection program off the ground.
CACTUS Montreal will run the downtown site, which will accommodate up to 215 injections per day — providing them with clean needles, a quiet space to use the narcotics and on-site nurses who can intervene in the event of an overdose.
The Hochelaga-Maisonneuve site will be run by a community group called Dopamine and provide a space for up to 18 injections daily. Another two sites are set to open later this summer, including Canada’s first mobile safe-injection service.
The program is funded by a three-year, $12-million grant from the provincial government.
“Drug users have been waiting for this service for quite a long time. They deserve to have access to health services, to stay healthy and have the same services that are offered to everybody in our society,” said Sandhia Vadlamudy, the executive director of CACTUS Montreal.
“Drugs are part of our reality so we chose to have a pragmatic approach and to be there for the people who need services.”
There are about 1,200 distribution centres across the province that offer clean syringes to help prevent the spread of HIV and other infectious diseases. But while experts agree that goes a long way toward reducing potential harm, it does little to address the risk of overdoses.
“I think it was nonsense for years to say, ‘I’ll give you a clean needle, now go inject yourself in an alley somewhere real quick,’ ” said Julien Montreuil, who works with the Anonyme community centre. “The risk is that they might leave the needle on the ground or get arrested or overdose and no one can be there to help them.”
At CACTUS, users are encouraged to stay in a rest area at the centre for at least 15 minutes after they’ve taken the drugs. Doctors say that is the time frame in which most opioid-related overdoses begin.
Medical staff at CACTUS are equipped with Nalaxone, a drug that helps reverse the effect of a heroin overdose.
Although Quebec has largely been spared the kind of opioid crisis that has ravaged parts of the United States and Western Canada, about 150 people die of an overdose each year in the province. That number includes about 70 deaths in Montreal.
Beyond the possibility of preventing deaths, Montreuil said having users remain in regular contact with health-care workers and people trained in addiction counselling can also put them back on the path to sobriety.
“You’re offering people a possibility, you’re offering them a way into the system so they can improve their quality of life,” he said. “You want to offer people all of the tools to make the right decision and be safe, not tell them they’re bad or judge them. There’s enough people in their lives telling them that.
“And then one day, maybe when they’re ready, they get help, maybe you help them get help. You have to believe it’s possible if you work in this field.”
The safe-injection sites are run alongside a team of doctors, nurses, social workers and in collaboration with the Montreal police. They’ll be co-ordinated through the CIUSSS Centre-Sud medical centre.
The sites will keep any drugs that users leave behind in a vault so that police can then dispose of the narcotics.
To help bring users into the fold, peer workers spend up to 21 hours a week on the streets talking to people who inject heroin, fentanyl and other drugs into their bloodstream.
“We’re out there whether it’s 40 degrees below zero or whether the sun’s shining,” said Jess Albaykak, a peer worker with GIAP Montreal. “Usually we talk, listen, build relationships and just do our best to be there for them.”
Another peer worker, David Palardy, said the work gives people an opportunity to have a deeper understanding of the people who struggle with addiction every day.
“These are more than drug users; they have families, loved ones, they’re people with hopes and aspirations,” he said. “You can’t just think of them as junkies, which is a terrible term. These are people and they deserve to be treated with dignity.”