Temporary overdose prevention site already making a difference
Within its first week, new Somerset West unit has recorded ‘three very close calls’
The Somerset West Community Health Centre, a week after opening its overdose prevention site, says it is making a difference for drug users in the community.
The centre opened a temporary site last Wednesday in its building at 55 Eccles St. in Chinatown. The site will operate until renovated space for a permanent supervised safe injection site is completed, Somerset West announced Wednesday.
Health Canada granted both sites exemption from federal drug laws in December 2017. Patients are permitted to bring drugs into the centre, where they can be tak- en safely under the watch of front line support workers.
The permanent safe-injection site will be located down the hall from the centre’s current prevention space. Renovation for the permanent site began Monday, but no opening date has been set.
The supervised injection site will be the third of its kind in the city, and will be the first site located outside the downtown core.
Stan Kupferschmidt, a harm outreach worker at the centre, said the current prevention site “couldn’t have happened soon enough” for those too concerned about criminalization to dial emergency lines in the event of an overdose.
“Just this weekend we had three very close calls. Everyone was revived, but again those were cases where no one called 911,” he said.
Kupferschmidt said the safe injection site had received “overwhelming support” during community consultations, with the percentage of participants in favour of having a site in their neighbourhood “in the high 80s.”
Ottawa’ s overdose problem shows no signs of disappearing soon. According to Ottawa Public Health, more than 350 suspected overdose-related hospital visits have taken place so far in 2018. Somerset ward had the second-highest rate (after Rideau-Vanier) of emergency room visits between 2013 and 2015.
The centre has provided harm re- duction services for 20 years, but harm reduction manager Carole Sinclair says the new prevention site allows them to offer better care.
“There has been a portion of care that has been lacking because of the criminalization of drug use,” she said. “So this is helping us broaden the treatment that we provide to people.”
The current site has only four support stations, compared to six in the one being prepared. Though space is limited, the current site has staff on hand to provide naloxone and CPR when an overdose occurs.
Robert Jamison, a peer support worker with the health centre, said the new site will help people who are the least likely to receive the health care they need: “It’s a lot of people who have been criminalized for a long time or stigmatized for their addictions, and because of those reasons they gave up on accessing health care, so I think this is a really excellent bridge to get those folks back in.”
There has been a portion of care that has been lacking because of the criminalization of drug use. So this is helping.