Pubdate: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 Source: Montreal Gazette (CN QU) Copyright: 2012 Canwest Publishing Inc. Contact: http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/letters.html Website: http://www.montrealgazette.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/274 Author: James Mennie Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?142 (Supervised Injection Sites) COALITION OF RESIDENTS FEARS 'NO MAN'S LAND' OF INJECTION SITES Group Set to Confront Borough, Health Board A coalition of residents' associations is poised to take its opposition to a proposal to introduce supervised-injection sites (SIS) downtown to its borough council and the board of directors of the local health board, a coalition spokesperson said on Tuesday. Gaeetan Paquet, president of the Coalition des associations de residents de Ville-Marie, which represents about 45,000 of the 80,000 residents of the downtown borough, said that the coalition's member associations would meet this month with Jocelyn Ann Campbell, Montreal executive committee member responsible for social and community development, as well as local police, in an effort to gauge the resulting fallout should supervisedinjection sites be established in the area. "We residents want to know how we'll have to deal with it," he said. "Will it be a no man's land?" Paquet said his group intended to make its presence felt at a meeting of the Ville Marie borough council scheduled for Feb. 7, as well as a health board meeting scheduled for Feb. 14. The group's members also intend to try and raise the issue with Quebec Health Minister Yves Bolduc. Several downtown residents' associations formed the coalition after a proposal made public last month by Montreal's public health department that supervised-injection sites be established in Montreal. The proposed sites, which health officials contend reduce the spread of HIV and hepatitis C and lower the number of overdose deaths, would be staffed by medical personnel and set up at fixed locations in three of four health department districts identified as possible candidates for the sites. One district covers Verdun and the neighbouring area, another the west end of Montreal, the third covers much of downtown and the last covers the city's east end, including Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. The report also called for the creation of a mobile supervisedinjection site able to reach areas not served by the other sites. The number of intravenous-drug users in Montreal has been estimated at 15,000 to 25,000. Paquet has said the city's downtown residents are already trying to deal with homelessness and crime in their neighbourhood. He added that if supervised-injection sites are established in Montreal, they should be part of a province-wide network able to reach those struggling with addiction in other regions of Quebec. "Right now, social workers (off the island of Montreal) are giving their cases a bus ticket to Montreal because that's where the resources are," he said. While the health board report recommends that sites be located in medical establishments and community centres, a spokesperson for the public health office said last month that community centres already offering needle exchange programs would probably form the majority of sites. That approach is at odds with the position taken by the city of Montreal, which favours the creation of more than one site but would prefer those sites be located in hospitals or CLSCs. City officials also have called upon the province to make supervised-injection sites part of a larger health-care strategy that includes dealing with homelessness and a lack of psychiatric beds in the city. Last October, Bolduc announced the province would work with community groups in Montreal and Quebec City to establish services for drug abusers. That announcement followed a Supreme Court decision in September that the federal government's attempt to shut down Vancouver's Insite clinic - North America's only nurse-supervised injection site - violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom