B.C. responds to opioid crisis by setting up six new overdose sites
The two new overdose prevention sites announced Thursday for Vancouver aren’t meant as permanent supervised injection sites, but are an emergency response to the current opioid overdose crisis, health officials say.
On Thursday, B.C. Health Minister Terry Lake announced in a statement that two new sites had been set up in Vancouver and were up-and-running as of Thursday, with another two each in Victoria and Surrey that will follow later this month. Additional sites throughout Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, and another in Victoria’s Rock Bay area, will also come at a later date, though specific addresses for those sites haven’t yet been announced. All will be located in areas identified as having high numbers of overdoses.
“There’s a lot more work to do, but this signals people are willing to start that work,” said the Overdose Prevention Society’s Sarah Blyth, who is among those who have been stationed at a pop-up supervised injection site in an alleyway near InSite, a legal supervised injection site.
The sites are described as indoor places where drug users can be supervised for overdoses by those trained in administering Naloxone. Of the two new locations in Vancouver announced Thursday, one is at VANDU’s storefront at 380 East Hastings St., while the other is at the Portland Hotel Society’s Washington Needle Depot at 177 East Hastings St. Both were established with the support of Vancouver police and city council.
At a news conference, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Perry Kendall spoke about the necessity of the new sites, noting the B.C. Coroners Service has alerted his office to expect another dramatic increase in overdose-related deaths in November. October saw 63 illicit-drug overdose deaths provincewide, and had already brought 2016’s total across B.C. to 622, a 56.7-per-cent increase over 2015’s recorded 397 deaths, which has been the province’s highest to date. Of the 622 deaths recorded in the first 10 months of the year, 60 per cent were fentanyl-related.
“We are at a stage where we are not doing sufficient enough work,” said Kendall. He also noted it’s been a challenge to know exactly how much has been spent combating the overdose crisis in B.C. since the effort is being taken on by multiple health authorities, but he estimates about $43 million has been spend so far this year.
He maintains the sites aren’t supervised injection sites and don’t require federal approval, noting the sites simply allow for interactions that would have occurred in any case outside in an alley, to happen inside a warm and safe venue.
“What we are doing here is trying to save lives,” he said.
Dr. Patricia Daly, chief medical officer with Vancouver Coastal Health, noted there are still active applications filed with Health Canada seeking approval to set up sanctioned supervised injection sites.