Pubdate: Wed, 04 Jan 2017
Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC)
Copyright: 2017 Times Colonist
Contact:  http://www.timescolonist.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481
Author: Katie DeRosa
Page: A3

FEDS ASKED TO APPROVE SUPERVISED PANDORA DRUG SITE

Island Health is asking the federal government for permission to open
a supervised drug-consumption site at 941 Pandora Avenue in downtown
Victoria.

The application was sent to federal Health Minister Jane Philpott on
Tuesday, Island Health said.

Two more applications - one for a public site at 2920 Bridge St. near
the Rock Bay Landing shelter and another site for residents of 844
Johnson Street - are in progress.

The proposed Pandora location is in a building owned by Island Health,
which provides public health, mental health and substance-use services.

It's the headquarters of street outreach nurses and the Assertive
Community Treatment (ACT) teams - integrated units in which nurses,
psychiatrists, outreach workers, social workers and police officers
manage people with mental illness living in the community.

Renovations would be needed to accommodate a supervised
drug-consumption site, including separate entrance and exit doors.

The proposal envisages creation of a consumption area with 10 booths,
a waiting room and reception area and a post-use area.

It would likely be months before the safe consumption site could be
operational, Island Health said. The site would be open 9 a.m. to 3
a.m., seven days a week.

The proposed site is located next to Our Place at 919 Pandora Ave.,
where a temporary overdose prevention site has been operating since
Dec. 20. A bright orange shipping container in the courtyard of the
drop-in shelter was used by 84 people in its first week of operation.

A second temporary drug-use site, at 844 Johnson St., is open only to
residents of the building, former campers from Victoria's dismantled
tent city.

"Island Health is committed to establishing a distributed, multi-site
model of supervised consumption services in Victoria, with a range of
harm reduction, public health and mental health and substance-use
programs embedded with supervised consumption service provision," said
Dr. Richard Stanwick, Island Health's chief medical health officer.

"While Island Health is pleased we have been able to establish and
fund two - and soon to be three - overdose prevention sites in
Victoria, the long-term objective has always been to deliver a more
integrated, client-centred, supervised consumption service."

There are two permanent safe consumption sites in Canada, both in
Vancouver.

A record number of people have died from illicit drug overdoses in
B.C. this year - 755 between January and the end of November, an
increase of more than 70 per cent from the same period last year,
according to the B.C. Coroners Service.

On Dec. 12, British Columbia enacted a ministerial order to support
the creation of temporary overdose-prevention sites - an emergency
response until official supervised consumption sites, with attached
health and social services, are approved by Health Canada.
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