Sandy Hill Community Health Centre suspends supervised injection site
Sandy Hill Community Health Centre has suspended its supervised injection site due to health and safety concerns.
“We must unfortunately suspend supervised injection services for the foreseeable future while we investigate next steps,” a note on the community health centre's website said.
The notice said it wasn't an easy decision, but “the health and safety of our clients, staff members and neighbours has always been and will always be our top priority.”
Other site services remained open Friday, including its medical clinic, drop-in, outreach, drug checking and distribution of harm reduction equipment.
In an email statement, program director Wendy Stewart said the health and safety concern had been investigated “over the past week,” but did not specify the issue.
“After meeting with the Ontario Ministry of Labour, it has become clear that, to meet our obligations under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, we will need to suspend some services provided by the CTS until we can further understand and address the situation,” Stewart wrote. “We have been in contact with Ottawa Public Health, the Ministry of Health and Health Canada to advise them of the situation and seek guidance. We are doing our best to minimize disruption.”
A spokesperson for Ontario's Ministry of Labour said the department was “notified of a health and safety event” on Feb. 23 and an inspector attended the health centre on Feb. 27.
“As the ministry's investigation is ongoing, we are not able to provide further details at this time,” the spokesperson said via email, but noted the site closure “took place prior to the notification and involvement of the ministry.”
Stewart said the health centre was “acutely aware of the impact this will have on clients and our community” and was considering redeploying its staff to do outreach and engagement in the surrounding neighbourhood and to provide overdose response outside.
“We are also acutely aware of the impact this will have in our local neighbourhood,” she wrote. “We are actively working with partners and all levels of government to mitigate impacts and resolve the situation.”
The safe injection site was the first permanent location in Ottawa, opening its doors in 2018.
At the time, it was heralded as offering integrated services under one roof, with counsellors, case managers, a methadone program and health care.
Supervised injection sites aim to reduce the amount of public drug consumption in places like public washrooms, parks or alleys and also to reduce overdoses.