Pubdate: Tue, 19 Apr 2016
Source: Ottawa Sun (CN ON)
Page: 12
Copyright: 2016 Canoe Limited Partnership
Contact: http://www.ottawasun.com/letter-to-editor
Website: http://www.ottawasun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/329
Author: Andrew Duffy

PUT PATIENTS FIRST: LEVY

City's Top Doctor Backs Supervised Injections Sites

Ottawa's medical officer of health says a supervised injection 
service is the consummate example of health care that puts the needs 
of patients first.

Dr. Isra Levy told the Ottawa Board of Health on Monday that the harm 
reduction service fits squarely into the provincial government's 
recently unveiled plan to build a patient-centred health care system 
in Ontario.

"I suggest that if ever there was a ready example of the need to put 
patients first, health first, this is the issue and this is the 
time," said Levy, whose comments represent his most spirited defence 
to date of a supervised injection site in Ottawa.

Levy said a proposal by the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre 
represents a "logical extension" of the addiction and counselling 
services it now offers drug users. Such sites, he said, should be 
part of any comprehensive and modern approach to drug treatment.

"These services are known to save lives and they offer many other 
positive Dr. Isra Levy, Medical Officer of Health for Ottawa 
described a supervised injection site as a prime example of the 
province's patient first health care policy. impacts for addicted 
individuals, their loves ones and the community at large," he said, 
adding: "I believe that what we and our partners and the other heath 
agencies have been doing to prevent addictions and to minimize their 
harms has not been enough."

Many front-line clinicians, Levy said, are frustrated by their 
inability to better engage drug addicts not yet ready to commit to a 
full treatment regime. Most people fighting addiction, he noted, will 
suffer a series of false starts, and will likely require 
"considerable nudging," before finally entering a detox program.

During a debate on Levy's comments, Rideau-Vanier Coun. Mathieu 
Fleury said he was concerned that the injection Dr. Isra Levy site 
model proposed for Ottawa is the same one used in Vancouver, which 
has a much different drug problem.

But Levy told Fleury that the models proposed for Ottawa and Toronto 
are, in fact, much different than Vancouver's Insite program, which 
was built as a standalone facility. Levy said the supervised 
injection site in Ottawa would be "much more modest in its scope and 
its intent."

The board of health later voted in favour of Fleury's motion to 
obtain more information about drug users in Ottawa, including their 
overdose, death and disease rates. 
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