Island Health is proposing a more permanent supervised consumption site at Nanaimo’s Wesley Street supportive housing complex, as the city continues to grapple with drug overdoses.
Island Health is collecting public feedback on its plan and location for supervised consumption services as part of an application process to Health Canada.
The health authority opened Nanaimo’s first authorized overdose prevention site in January, under direction from the B.C. health minister. It was considered a temporary measure with a longer-term supervised consumption site requiring an exemption under the federal controlled drugs and substances act.
Island Health is now looking to make that application, proposing the same location at 437 Wesley St., where people would be able to use illicit drugs under supervision with intervention and access to health and social services on-hand.
Wesley Street is a good location that’s well utilized and has been well accepted, according to Dr. Paul Hasselback, Island Health’s medical health officer for central Vancouver Island, who says 767 people have used at the site as of April 15.
He said supervised consumption services are part of a continuum of services needed in communities to address substance use, such as early intervention activities and enforcement. He said there’s reasonably good utilization of the current site, implying demand. Rates of fatalities and overdoses are also on the higher side in Nanaimo.
It suggests ongoing issues of substance use problematic to the health and well-being of residents of Nanaimo, Hasselback said.
Hasselback added that’s one of the major factors that goes into a decision on whether a more permanent supervised consumption site would be of benefit.
There were 28 overdose deaths last year, and 13 as of the end of March 2017, according to statistics from the B.C. Coroners service.
“Our rate of fatalities here in Nanaimo is about double what we saw in 2016, so that’s actually quite disconcerting …we are about what six months was from last year,” said Hasselback.
The overdose prevention site is funded at about $400,000 each year, and Island Health expects a supervised consumption service would be in the same range. The service would also need a zoning amendment at 437 Wesley St., which Hasselback said the city is currently looking at.
Coun. Gord Fuller, involved in an unsanctioned supervised consumption site earlier this year, told the News Bulletin it’s absolutely necessary to have safe injection sites, which save lives, but doesn’t think the Wesley Street address is a good location for a permanent site. He believes it needs to be in a separate building.
“Right now what I’ve heard from some of the tenants at Wesley Street is that it’s impacting the tenants … because the people that are coming into it don’t necessary live in the building so they don’t have that level of respect [for it],” he said.
Coun. Ian Thorpe, chairman of the city public safety committee, said he probably would have been hesitant to give support to a safe consumption site in the community a year ago, but events over the past year have shown him there’s a crisis and lives are being lost.
“We need to do something to try and combat that,” he said. “At this point, I certainly am supportive of the efforts that Island Health and city have been undertaking.”
To give feedback on supervised consumption sites, please visit www.viha.ca/scs.