Pubdate: Fri, 13 Jan 2017
Source: Kamloops This Week (CN BC)
Copyright: 2017 Kamloops This Week
Contact:  http://www.kamloopsthisweek.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1271
Author: Dale Bass

PLAN FOR SAFE-CONSUMPTION SITES SET TO TAKE NEXT STEP THIS MONTH

Safe-consumption drug sites will move a step closer to creation in
Kamloops this month as agencies and other organizations prepare to meet
with Interior Health Authority administrators in the city.

The meeting comes at the conclusion of a consultation period that included
politicians, front-line workers, emergency personnel, police and others
who deal with the realities of addiction.

The public also had the opportunity to express their views online.

Last fall, IHA medical officer of health Dr. Silvina Mema discussed the
plan to create at least one such site in the city. Health Minister Terry
Lake, however, recommended a mobile site be created to provide care on
both sides of the river.

Kamloops city council gave unanimous approval in September to the creation
of up to two supervised consumption sites.

Mema told KTW all sides are working to finalize plans, but no formal
application has been sent to Health Canada requesting an exemption from
the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act that would prohibit creation of
the sites.

"There is an exemption application process," Mema said. "The law requires
all this paperwork go to Health Canada."

She said she hopes any application would be processed quickly.

"While we talk, people are dying," she said.

However, Mema said, the project needs planning.

"It has to have some roots," she said. "We can't float this out of nowhere."

Mema said the success overdose-prevention sites in Kamloops are
experiencing confirm a framework needs to be in place to ensure any
clinics can be successful.

While the OD sites at ASK Wellness Centre and Crossroads Inn have been
working well, Mema said, a similar site in Kelowna has struggled. Part of
that reason is the existence of ASK Wellness, she said, an agency that has
as its objective dealing with addictions and promoting harm reduction.

The two sites are in areas were drug users congregate while the Kelowna
clinic is in a vacant building that once housed IHA offices, located in an
area away from any part of that city where drug users gather.

In its first two weeks, the two Kamloops sites handed out 49 naloxone kits
and staff used the drug to reverse four overdoses. ASK executive director
Bob Hughes said the sites have distributed more than 150 kits which
contain the drug that will temporarily stop an overdose.

In Kelowna, the start was slower, Mema said, but has been picking up.

The Kamloops sites have gone beyond the primary goal of saving lives, she
said, also offering wound care and other services.

"That's what needs to happen," she said.
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