Supervised drug-use site inundated in first week
The executive director of a supervised consumption site that opened in Lethbridge last week says more than 80 people have so far used the service.
Stacey Bourque, executive director of ARCHES, said staff at the facility have reversed two overdoses by administering naloxone since doors opened last Wednesday at noon, and nurses have administered oxygen many other times.
The site had 17 people in its first day of operation, Bourque said. The 80 people who have registered for medical supervision at the site while they consume substances have used the service a total of 200 times.
The facility opened amid a surge of overdoses in Lethbridge, as well as the Blood Tribe community.
Dana Terry, deputy chief of support services with Lethbridge Fire and Emergency Services, said there were 56 overdoses in a oneweek period in the city. In recent days, the pace has “slowed down considerably,” but is still above average, with two to five a day, and emergency responders are still having to give higher doses of naloxone than usual.
Terry said there’s always the risk that the overdose numbers will rise again.
“As a new producer brings out something new, or a different batch — there is no quality control when they’re manufacturing this stuff,” he said. “They’re making it in basements or garages ... so you just do not know what you’re getting. That’s always a concern for us, there’s no question.”
Bourque said she believes the toxic batch of street drugs behind the spike in overdoses is a colourful, rock-like powder that is being marketed and sold as heroin, but is in fact fentanyl, carfentanil or another fentanyl analogue.
Awareness that the supervised consumption service is available is being raised through ARCHES outreach and housing teams, as well as through emergency services workers and homeless shelter staff, Bourque said.
“Everyone’s just sort of rallied together to encourage people to use the site,” she said.
The head of the Blood Tribe department of health said Monday a temporary overdose prevention site will be established in an ATCO trailer in Stand Off, with three nurses providing supervision for drug consumption.
“Through our partnership with the Blood Tribe, we’re hoping to incorporate community members into that so that there’s some familiar faces on staff,” said Bourque.
The temporary site could be in operation as early as Wednesday.