Pubdate: Wed, 03 Feb 2016
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright: 2016 The Globe and Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168
Author: Andrea Woo
Page: S3

ISLAND HEALTH TO CONSIDER INJECTION SITE

Officials say they will consult community while advocate group, 
critical of the pace of action, pledges to open facility by year's end

The Vancouver Island Health Authority says it will work with 
community partners to explore offering "broad-based supervised 
consumption services" for drug users in Victoria.

The affirmation comes as a local group, which had accused the health 
authority of inaction, pledges to open the city's first supervised 
injection site by year's end.

Yes2SCS - a coalition of health-care professionals, social workers, 
researchers and activists - has called for supervised consumption 
services for years, insisting that, in their absence, some drug users 
are dying needlessly of overdoses.

In December, eight people in Greater Victoria died of suspected drug 
overdoses in just one week.

The health authority has said it supports such services in principle, 
but it declined to engage in conversations with Yes2SCS because "it 
was clear" new sites would not have been approved under the former 
federal government headed by the Conservatives, said Suzanne Germain, 
a VIHA spokeswoman.

"With a possible/ likely shift on this issue in Canada, we look 
forward to working with government at all levels, as well as other 
stakeholders on this topic," she wrote in an e-mail.

Bruce Wallace, a member of the Yes2SCS steering committee, countered 
that the hurdles imposed by the previous government did not stop 
Vancouver Coastal Health ( VCH) from providing and supporting harm 
reduction services.

"For the last decade, Island Health possessed the same opportunities 
to facilitate a federal exemption [ from drug laws] that enabled the 
establishment of Insite in neighbouring [ VCH], but no such action 
has ever been initiated," Mr. Wallace said.

Vancouver's Dr. Peter Centre, a facility for people living with HIV/ 
AIDS, has offered supervised injection services since 2002, receiving 
its federal exemption in January.

Insite, a dedicated supervised injection site in the city's Downtown 
Eastside, opened its doors in 2003.

"There is no possible way to deny that Coastal Health sustained [ 
supervised consumption] services in one site without a federal 
exemption, as well as supported the exemption process for another, 
while no similar actions were taken by Island Health," Mr. Wallace said.

The federal, provincial and Victoria municipal governments now 
support supervised injection sites.

The Victoria Police Department says it supports them in principle, as 
harm-reduction measures can contribute to the department's overall 
safety mission. B. C.' s medical health officer, Perry Kendall, has 
long championed supervised injection services, calling the Dr. Peter 
Centre's recent approval "a triumph of science, common sense and 
compassion over ideology."

Yes2SCS says it is now increasing efforts to complete the application 
for exemption from federal drug laws needed to open such a site - a 
process that was made considerably more difficult under the former 
government in Ottawa.

According to the Respect For Communities Act, prospective operators 
must meet a laundry list of requirements, including extensive 
consultation with community partners; letters of approval from 
government, police and health professionals; and statistics and other 
information on crime and public nuisance in the area.

Shane Calder, a spokesman for Yes2SCS, said the group will also be 
working with service providers and other partners to answer such 
questions as which model would work best in Victoria, how many booths 
and nurses are needed, and what hours it should operate?

"We're not going to wait for VIHA to be present for those 
conversations. We're going to consult people who use drugs, we are 
going to consult the community," he said.

"We will do this with or without the health authority. We would like 
them to be involved."

Kellie Hudson, another VIHA spokeswoman, said the health authority 
will engage with all interested community groups, partners and 
stakeholders, including Yes2SCS, "for broad-based supervised 
consumption services, which may not necessarily incorporate the model 
of a single supervised consumption site."

Yes2SCS is hoping to submit an application by the summer.

The group is committed to seeing supervised injection services 
operating by the end of the year, despite the challenges posed by the 
Respect for Communities Act, Mr. Wallace said.

"The federal government has dramatically changed its position in 
regard to [ supervised consumption sites], and therefore we do not 
expect that the purposefully obstructing policies related to [ the 
act] and the federal exemption process will continue to be a 
determining factor in providing these critical health services," he said.

"We expect the question of sanctioned or unsanctioned services to be 
outdated, and therefore we pursue both."

British Columbia recorded 465 illicit drug overdose deaths last year, 
at a rate per population not seen since 1998.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom