Temporary overdose prevention site receives ministry approval
Hamilton’s first temporary overdose prevention site is expected to be up and running in the next couple of weeks after receiving the province’s stamp of approval.
On Monday night, the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care approved the application put forward by a team of local agencies including Hamilton Urban Core Community Health Centre and the Shelter Health Network.
The ministry will provide one-time funding of up to $116,300 to support the temporary site, which will be housed in a room at Hamilton Urban Core Community Health Centre’s location at 71 Rebecca St., as well as grant an exemption under the Criminal Code.
“I am very relieved and happy that this has finally happened,” network medical director Dr. Jill Wiwcharuk said Tuesday morning. “I am disappointed that it took so long despite the colossal efforts of so many people in this community to get it going.”
The Shelter Health Network spent six weeks trying to find a temporary overdose prevention site where people can safely inject drugs under the supervision of health professionals. The search had been variously foiled by landlord reluctance and municipal zoning regulations.
That changed last week when the network reached an agreement with Hamilton Urban Core Community Health Centre to use space on Rebecca Street.
“I can’t think of a better place in Hamilton for this to happen,” Wiwcharuk said. “The Urban Core has all sorts of resources that are already available for people, and this is just a logical next step for all the great work they do.”
Network members had been anxiously awaiting provincial approval for the temporary site — which grants permission to operate for six months with the potential for renewal — ahead of the looming provincial election.
Wiwcharuk said a patient in her clinic on Monday told her another community member died of an opioid overdose.
“Now the real work is going to start as far as getting this up and running and starting to save lives,” she added.
The goal is to open within a week or two given the fact they’ve had time to prepare in the lead-up to the approval, Wiwcharuk said. Next steps will include training staff, acquiring basic supplies and figuring out the operations.
Staffing and support to the site will be provided by public health, Good Shepherd, the Canadian Mental Health Association’s Hamilton branch, Wesley Urban Ministries, Hamilton Paramedic Services, the AIDS Network and Marchese Pharmacy.
The site will be housed in a room typically used for programming at Hamilton Urban Core Community Health Centre, Wiwcharuk said. After hours, the room will be partitioned, so one side can be used for supervised injection with the other half sectioned off for “chilling out” afterwards. On-site there will be access to harm-reduction supplies and the antioverdose drug naloxone. There will be three staff members on at all times, one of whom will be a medical professional.
The site will operate from 8 to 11 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and 6 to 11 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and over the weekends.
This effort is separate from the more bureaucratic process of setting up a permanent supervised injection site, which some councillors are lobbying to locate in a local hospital.
The first provincially sanctioned temporary site opened in London in February. The province has approved 11 overdose prevention sites.
Last year, there were 1,053 opioid-related deaths in Ontario from January to October, a 52 per cent spike over the same period the year before. In Hamilton, the increase in deaths in that time surged more than 80 per cent, with 75 fatalities.