Officials have hope for injection site
Powell Street Getaway opens to help deal with worst health crisis in decades
With more than 200 people dead from drug overdoses in Vancouver already this year, health officials hope the city’s third federally approved injection site will provide relief from a devastating public health emergency.
On Friday, Powell Street Getaway begins operating its new, supervised-injection site seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m., after receiving an exemption from Health Canada in May.
It opens amid an illicit-drug overdose crisis that killed 640 people in B.C. in the first five months of 2017, up from 347 during the same period last year, according to the B.C. Coroners Service. Most involved fentanyl poisoning.
The site is embedded in a building operated by the non-profit Lookout Emergency Aid Society, just around the corner from Oppenheimer Park at 528 Powell St. It replaces one of 18 overdose-prevention sites that opened in B.C. last winter following a ministerial order on Dec. 9 in the wake of a surge in drug deaths.
A pair of harm-reduction workers and a nurse there are equipped to respond to overdoses as drug users inject themselves in one of five stainless-steel booths using clean needles and other harm-reduction supplies.
Lookout’s executive director Shayne Williams said the building — previously the Living Room drop-in resource centre — has served as a place for people living in nearby single-room occupancy hotels to socialize while accessing resources that help them survive.
On Thursday, Judy Darcy, minister in charge of the new ministry of mental health and addictions, visited the site during a tour of Lower Mainland harm-reduction facilities where she met with front-line workers.
In becoming minister, Darcy has been mandated by Premier John Horgan to form an immediate response to what she called the “most serious public health emergency” faced by B.C. in decades. “There is no limit to the suffering this has caused and there is no limit to the kinds of families and the kinds of people who are affected by this crisis,” Darcy said.
Dr. Patricia Daly, chief medical health officer for Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, said recently the death toll has slowed but added it’s too early to tell if the trend will continue.
Overdoses killed an estimated 215 people in Vancouver between Jan. 1 and mid-July this year, according to the city and police.
Daly said the new site is among the health authority’s approaches to ensuring the overdose crisis doesn’t get worse.
The facility joins two other federally approved, supervised-injection sites in Vancouver, including Insite in the Downtown Eastside and the Dr. Peter Centre near St. Paul’s Hospital, both of which opened in 2003.
Insite had 215,000 visits by 8,000 people in 2016, with an average of eight overdose interventions per day. No one died.
Two sites were also given approval in Surrey in May, including Safepoint on the Surrey Strip on 135A Street and another at Quibble Creek Sobering and Assessment Centre near Surrey Memorial Hospital.
Daly said there were challenges in getting exemptions for Powell Street Getaway but said federal Health Minister Jane Philpott is addressing the cumbersome process.
Efforts to obtain exemptions for more sites had been blocked by the previous federal Conservative government, which tried to shut down Insite but lost in the Supreme Court and which introduced legislation that further hampered the application process.
Darcy said Horgan met with Philpott earlier this week and was encouraged by the potential to collaborate on solutions to the crisis.
Powell Street Getaway’s injection site will operate on a $680,000 annual budget and could eventually support more than 200 to 300 people per day, Daly said.
On Wednesday, Vancouver city council approved $600,000 in additional funding for programs to respond to the overdose crisis.