City to open interim safe-injection site
Move follows weekend opening of unsanctioned site in Moss Park
After an unsanctioned safe-injection site opened in a downtown park over the weekend, Toronto Public Health has announced it will open an interim site where people can shoot their drugs in a safe environment.
The interim supervised injection services will be located at a site for which (federal) exemptions have already been provided, Dr. Eileen de Villa, the city’s Medical Officer of Health, said Monday.
“We want to make sure that we’re providing these interim supervised-injection services in a manner that’s safe for the clients and of course for our staff.”
She suggested the interim site could be operating in “several days” and will not be as “sizable or substantive” as the permanent sites.
The interim site will be at Toronto Public Health’s downtown office. Future permanent sites are planned for South Riverdale Community Health Centre and Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre. The federal health minister granted exemptions for these locations from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, allowing them to operate legally.
Supervised injection services provide a safe and hygienic environment for people to inject pre-obtained drugs under the supervision of qualified staff.
The permanent sites aren’t scheduled to open until the fall.
That wasn’t good enough for harm reduction workers, weary of what they believe is government inaction in the face of an epidemic of opioid overdoses.
Over the weekend, the workers set up a tent in Moss Park, between Jarvis and Sherbourne Sts., stocked with overdose prevention kits and staffed with a registered nurse, outreach workers and overdose prevention trainers.
Zoe Dodd, a front-line harm-reduction worker, was back at Moss Park on Monday afternoon while fellow volunteers helped erect two new white tents. She applauded Toronto Public Health’s announcement, but said members of the Harm Reduction Alliance will continue to operate the makeshift site at least until next Monday. She said the three proposed permanent sites will not be enough. “This is a massive city. Drug use is all over the city.”
Twenty-four people used the site on Sunday and workers saved the life of one person who overdosed in the tent, Dodd said.
“He went down very fast and if we were not here, by the time paramedics might have arrived . . . he may not have had vital signs.”
Funds for supplies are being raised in a GoFundMe campaign, that has so far raised $11,000.
Toronto police made a decision not to arrest anyone at the site after acting Supt. Henry Kuck met with the site’s organizers, Toronto Police spokesperson Mark Pugash said Monday. The harm-reduction workers agreed the site would only operate between 4 and 10 p.m. and the tent would remain fully enclosed and private, he said.
The workers also assured Kuck a registered nurse or nurse practitioner would be inside the tent when drugs were being injected and that 911 would be called if anyone overdosed.
A police uniform presence was maintained in the general park for regular patrols. “We have no plans to change our position, which I think people saw over the weekend,” Pugash said.