Pubdate: Fri, 09 Dec 2016
Source: Metro (Vancouver, CN BC)
Copyright: 2016 Metro Canada
Contact:  http://www.metronews.ca/vancouver
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3775
Author: Jen St. Denis

SAFE CONSUMPTION SITES FIGHT B.C. OVERDOSE CRISIS

"We need to bring the death toll down. We need to bring down the
number of people with brain damage."

That was the stark assessment of British Columbia's ongoing drug
overdose crisis from Dr. Perry Kendall, B.C.'s provincial health
officer. The addition of the synthetic opioid fentanyl to drugs like
heroin has already contributed to a spike in overdose deaths: between
January and October 2016, 622 people died from overdoses in B.C.

That number will certainly rise when the B.C. coroner reports November
numbers, said Kendall.

"They are higher than anything we've seen before," Kendall said. The
appearance of carfentanil, a much more potent form of fentanyl, is
likely a factor in the increase.

"Last week St. Paul's Hospital's ICU (intensive care unit) was full of
people who had overdosed, who had been unconscious for so long that
they had brain damage," he said. "We have to stop that."

B.C.'s Ministry of Health and health authorities in Vancouver, Surrey
and Victoria are taking the extraordinary step of opening what the
ministry has termed six "overdose prevention sites" in those three
cities. Kendall insisted the sites are not supervised injection sites,
which are currently very difficult to open because of a strict federal
law brought in by the former Conservative government, a law the B.C.
government and Vancouver Coastal Health are lobbying the government to
change. Only two legal supervised injection sites currently operate in
Canada, both in Vancouver.

"A supervised consumption site is a place that's specifically designed
for people to come in, have their injection monitored under
supervision, to receive training on safe injections, to be assessed
for any health problems that they have, and to be linked with health
care," Kendall said.

In Vancouver, the three overdose prevention sites are located at the
Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) at 380 East Hastings St.,
Portland Hotel Society's Washington Needle Depot at 177 East Hastings
and the Drug Resource Centre, also operated by Portland Hotel Society.
At the sites, drug users will be able to use their drug, inside and
within view of people trained to administer naloxone, an
overdose-reversing drug.

The province did not ask permission first from the federal government,
but Terry Lake, B.C.'s health minister, met with federal health
minister Jane Philpott following the announcement of the new program
this morning, Kendall said. A legal opinion suggested the sites do not
contravene the federal legislation.

Frustrated with the slow response to an overwhelming crisis,
volunteers have been operating pop-up injection sites in the Downtown
Eastside and briefly in Surrey, another overdose hotspot. Dr. Patricia
Daly, chief medical officer for Vancouver Coastal Health, said she
hoped the new sites will mean there is "no longer a need for these
pop-up tents."

"We support them in providing first aid and ask that they'd work with
us to steer clients to InSite (a safe injection site in the Downtown
Eastside) and other services that we offer," Daly said.

"I understand why they popped up, because despite the work we've done
to date we've seen deaths rise."

Vancouver Coastal Health also plans to install B.C.'s Mobile Medical
Health Unit, a modular building that was used during the Olympics, at
58 W. Hastings St. The city-owned vacant lot was the site of a tent
city from July to November. The unit will act as a satellite emergency
department of St. Paul's Hospital, Daly said, where medical staff will
connect people with addiction treatments such as suboxone.
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