Overdose-prevention unit rolling

Kelowna’s mobile drug overdose-prevention unit is officially in business.

The mobile unit, which is a renovated motorhome, replaces the fixed overdose-prevention site on Ellis Street, which is now closed.

The mobile unit will be parked downtown at 455 Leon Ave., in the parking lot behind Outreach Urban Health, 12:305:30 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday.

It will also be parked in Rutland at 125 Park Rd., beside the Rutland Community Dialysis Centre, 7-11:30 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday.

On Jan. 13, Interior Health announced plans to apply to Health Canada for an exemption that would allow it to operate a mobile supervised-injection site.

In the meantime, it has acquired a mobile drug overdose-prevention unit, which does not require an exemption from Health Canada.

It will serve as a place where people who use drugs can be monitored and treated in case of an overdose, but staff will not be supervising drug use in the unit.

A nurse and a mental-health or social worker will work out of the mobile unit at all times.

“We will be providing some form of primary-care nursing services, but also supporting people for when they are ready to either stop using drugs or need more support,” said Deborah Preston, health service administrator with Interior Health.

In Kelowna, there were 24 drug overdose deaths from January to March this year, according to a recent report from the BC Coroners Service.

“At the end of the day, our responsibility is to the drug users to try and keep them from dying and trying to engage them into treatment,” said Dr. Trevor Corneil, chief medical health officer with Interior Health. “Through the implementation and evaluation of mobile services, we will be well positioned to implement mobile supervised consumption services once exemptions are received from Health Canada.”