Staff wear masks to avoid drug fumes at Victoria supportive-housing facility
Staff at a Victoria supportive housing facility have been given respirators to reduce exposure to toxic drug smoke, the B.C. Conservatives said in question period on Wednesday.
The B.C. Conservatives say it's evidence that the B.C. NDP's drug policies are putting workers at risk. Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon, however, said it's a sign that non-profit housing providers are keeping their staff safe while also providing housing to people who would otherwise be on the street.
B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad said an employee with the Victoria Cool Aid Society reached out to him to raise concerns about drug use in a supportive-housing building that regularly exposes staff to toxic drug fumes. Staff have to wear “gas masks because of the dangerous fumes in the environment,” said Rustad, calling that “disturbing.”
“Currently this program of safe supply and decriminalization is failing,” said Rustad.
Kahlon acknowledged there are people in supportive-housing sites that don't follow the no-smoking rules.
“But do we kick them out so (they) find themselves in a homeless situation?” he asked in response to Rustad in question period at the legislature in Victoria.
Kahlon accused the Conservative leader of “punching down” on vulnerable people and people living on the street “to score political points.”
The debate over exposure to toxic drug smoke has dominated the legislature for the last week after a leaked memo from Northern Health said that because of the province's decriminalization, police or nurses shouldn't confiscate patients' drugs or weapons. Nurses spoke to Postmedia News and said they're worried for their safety as a result of people smoking illicit drugs inside hospitals in violation of the rules.
The B.C. Conservatives and B.C. United say it's a result of the B.C. NDP's “reckless” experiment with drug decriminalization.
Don McTavish, Cool Aid's director of housing and shelters, said the respirators and other safety measures were rolled out in recent months at the Tally Ho supportive housing facility and two other buildings that house people struggling with addiction and homelessness.
This followed air tests done in November at the 154-unit Tally Ho building that found high levels of illicit drug smoke. The subpar air quality was exacerbated by the fact that the old building, a former motel, has very poor air circulation and outdated ventilation.
McTavish said those measures weren't the result of a WorkSafeBC order, as Rustad stated, but were proactively taken by the society in consultation with public health officials and B.C. Housing.
McTavish said people who consume drugs have moved from injecting them to smoking them and the substances are cut with increasingly toxic substances like ketamine.
As a result, in cases where someone smokes in an enclosed area like an elevator or stairwell, staff exposed to the smoke were getting headaches and nausea, he said.
“We were getting people reporting symptoms lasting longer than we'd expect,” McTavish said. “We were noticing (exposure) more frequently in some of our really low-barrier sites, where people weren't adhering to our no-smoking rules or guests were getting in and not caring about that.”
The housing provider now bans visitors and installed fences around the site to reduce the number of non-residents hanging around outside and smoking. Cool Aid also hired more security to help enforce the no-smoking rules and brought in a mechanical engineer to improve airflow in the building. Staff were provided with respirators and trained on when they might be needed, McTavish said, such as entering a resident's room.
“We have to adapt our services to the realities because we're providing services to people that are pretty at-risk to themselves,” he said.
Cool Aid spoke to first-responders who come in the building such as paramedics, police officers and coroners to “advise them of the hazard and then explain to them what we're doing about it,” he said.
McTavish said staff had frank conversations with Tally Ho residents about the reason for the respirators in an effort to avoid stigmatizing drug users but also being clear about the risks to staff.
“Generally, people totally understand and I hope it may have a positive effect and may actually help people reflect on what they're doing that unintentionally is having a negative impact on others,” he said. “They're not trying to cause harm with the second-hand smoke. They're just trying to get through their day. So we're here to help with that and this is what's necessary for us to do the work safely.”
Followup air-quality tests at Tally Ho in January have shown a much lower level of toxic drug smoke, McTavish said.
The society has 16 residential buildings and McTavish and his team are working on rolling out the same safety measures at all of them, with the highest priority being buildings seeing the most problems with drug exposure.
During the estimates debate Wednesday, Labour Minister Harry Bains said that last year, 36 health-care workers made WorkSafeBC claims for time off work related to smoke exposure.