Pubdate: Mon, 30 Nov 2015
Source: Montreal Gazette (CN QU)
Copyright: 2015 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact:  http://www.montrealgazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/274
Author: Aaron Derfel
Page: A1

SAFE INJECTION SITES LAUDED

Cost-Effective Findings Could Boost Montreal's Plan for Project

A new Canadian study about safe-injection sites for intravenous drug 
users concludes that they are cost-effective to the health-care 
system - an argument that is likely to be advanced as Montreal takes 
steps to open four such facilities in the city.

Researchers at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto carried out an 
analysis that compared the projected costs of maintaining supervised 
injection sites over a period of 20 years with the potential savings 
to the health system in averted HIV and hepatitis C infections. The 
researchers' estimates were conservative, as they did not include 
other infections associated with intravenous drug use and the costs 
involved in treating and hospitalizing patients suffering from overdoses.

Still, despite their conservative approach, the researchers found 
that one facility in Toronto would incur $33.1 million in direct 
operating expenses over 20 years, but save $42.7 million in 
health-care costs because of an anticipated reduction in HIV and 
hepatitis C infections. This represented a net savings of $9.6 million.

The researchers predicted that a single site Toronto would spare 164 
people from contracting HIV (because they wouldn't be using dirty 
needles) and prevent 459 hepatitis C infections.

"I would say that having supervised injection sites in Ottawa and 
Toronto are a good investment in health dollars because we get 
considerable health benefits at a reasonable cost," Ahmed Bayoumi, 
the study's senior author, said in an interview.

The study, published on Monday in the journal Addiction, focused 
exclusively on Toronto and Ottawa. But Bayoumi suggested that setting 
up safe-injection sites in Montreal might also be beneficial.

"I think it's a reasonable hypothesis that it would be cost-effective 
to do this in Montreal, but I really hesitate to say anything 
definitive without further study," he added.

In June, Mayor Denis Coderre vowed to establish three safe-injection 
sites and one mobile unit in the fall despite former prime minister 
Stephen Harper's resistance to the plan.

"This is urgent in Montreal," Coderre said after Montreal applied 
formally to Health Canada for an exemption that would permit the 
sites to open in the city.

However, the mayor has since been mum on the subject as he focused on 
the city's sewage problems and then the municipal budget.

In 2011, the Supreme Court ruled that Ottawa's refusal to renew the 
exemption for Canada's sole safe-injection site - Insite in Vancouver 
- - was unconstitutional because it deprived people of access to 
potentially life-saving medical care.

Montreal plans to open its sites downtown, in the Plateau and 
Hochelaga districts and run a mobile unit in the city's northern and 
southwest neighbourhoods.

The St. Michael's study found that running as many as three sites in 
Toronto and two in Ottawa would be cost-effective.

Although former Conservative health minister Rona Ambrose has 
described the sites as "drug-injection houses," Prime Minister Justin 
Trudeau has supported the principle behind the facilities. In June, 
Trudeau praised Coderre's plans to open the sites in Montreal as 
helping to "make people's lives better, to keep them safe, and I 
applaud him for moving forward on this."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom