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With opioid overdoses rising, Ottawa’s public health unit wants to open its own supervised drug-injection site, health officer Dr. Isra Levy told the board of health Tuesday.
“It is my intent to begin to offer these services as soon as we can responsibly do so, and we are aiming to achieve that within the next two weeks,” he wrote in a mid-day memo. Levy said he believes he has the authority to do it without direct approval from the board, but he’ll ask for a vote on his plan at the next health-board meeting on Monday.
The site would be in a health-unit building at 179 Clarence St. in the ByWard Market, but would be operated by the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre. That clinic, at Rideau and Nelson streets, is planning to open a permanent supervised injection site and has federal approval for it, but it won’t be ready to go until the end of October. And, Levy wrote, drug users are in danger now.
“To date in 2017, we are seeing an average of nearly 120 emergency room visits for suspected opioid overdose each month in Ottawa, compared with fewer than 100 per month in 2016,” his memo said. “Starting in June 2017, there has been a significant increase in opioid overdoses in Ottawa. Ottawa Paramedic Services reported over double the number of naloxone (a drug that can reverse opioid overdoses) administrations during June compared with the monthly average during January to May. There has also been a 22-per-cent increase in suspected opioid overdose-related emergency department (ED) visits during June, July and August, compared with January through May.”
The problem is street drugs like heroin that have been laced with fentanyl and carfentanil. They’re all opioids, all with generally similar effects on users, but the latter two are much more powerful. They’re appealing to suppliers and dealers because they’re easier to transport and conceal, but dangerous to users who can’t be sure how potent their drugs are. The difference between a “normal” dose of fentanyl and a deadly one can be the size of a few grains of sand.
A supervised injection site is meant to reduce the danger of drug use by having trained staff around to help if a user overdoses.
A group called Overdose Prevention Ottawa started its own “pop-up” injection site in Raphael Brunet park two weeks ago. Copying people in Vancouver and Toronto, volunteers staff a tent in the park — a little patch of grass by a parking lot in Lowertown — for three hours a day. Levy’s health unit has chosen to treat the pop-up site as a form of “peer support,” an extension of the health units efforts to teach drug users how to look out for each other.
“In light of pressing epidemiological trends and recent developments in the community, I believe there is an urgent and immediate need for enhancement to harm reduction services to include SIS in our city,” his memo says. The pop-up tent isn’t enough.
Since the Sandy Hill centre has permission from Health Canada to run a permanent supervised injection site, it would manage the temporary one at the Clarence Street building, Levy wrote, provided Health Canada is OK with stretching its approval to cover the health unit’s premises.
Mayor Jim Watson opposes supervised injection sites but has stayed out of the way as the board of health has given Levy the go-ahead to help outside groups like the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre start them (other community health clinics are interested in following). Not having the health unit itself run an injection site has been important to keeping city councillors on side.
“As (health-board) members will appreciate, this situation is evolving rapidly. I am grateful for your confidence in enabling me to take the steps outlined above, which I have deemed necessary,” Levy’s memo says.
dreevely@postmedia.com
twitter.com/davidreevely
查看原文...
“It is my intent to begin to offer these services as soon as we can responsibly do so, and we are aiming to achieve that within the next two weeks,” he wrote in a mid-day memo. Levy said he believes he has the authority to do it without direct approval from the board, but he’ll ask for a vote on his plan at the next health-board meeting on Monday.
The site would be in a health-unit building at 179 Clarence St. in the ByWard Market, but would be operated by the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre. That clinic, at Rideau and Nelson streets, is planning to open a permanent supervised injection site and has federal approval for it, but it won’t be ready to go until the end of October. And, Levy wrote, drug users are in danger now.
“To date in 2017, we are seeing an average of nearly 120 emergency room visits for suspected opioid overdose each month in Ottawa, compared with fewer than 100 per month in 2016,” his memo said. “Starting in June 2017, there has been a significant increase in opioid overdoses in Ottawa. Ottawa Paramedic Services reported over double the number of naloxone (a drug that can reverse opioid overdoses) administrations during June compared with the monthly average during January to May. There has also been a 22-per-cent increase in suspected opioid overdose-related emergency department (ED) visits during June, July and August, compared with January through May.”
The problem is street drugs like heroin that have been laced with fentanyl and carfentanil. They’re all opioids, all with generally similar effects on users, but the latter two are much more powerful. They’re appealing to suppliers and dealers because they’re easier to transport and conceal, but dangerous to users who can’t be sure how potent their drugs are. The difference between a “normal” dose of fentanyl and a deadly one can be the size of a few grains of sand.
A supervised injection site is meant to reduce the danger of drug use by having trained staff around to help if a user overdoses.
A group called Overdose Prevention Ottawa started its own “pop-up” injection site in Raphael Brunet park two weeks ago. Copying people in Vancouver and Toronto, volunteers staff a tent in the park — a little patch of grass by a parking lot in Lowertown — for three hours a day. Levy’s health unit has chosen to treat the pop-up site as a form of “peer support,” an extension of the health units efforts to teach drug users how to look out for each other.
“In light of pressing epidemiological trends and recent developments in the community, I believe there is an urgent and immediate need for enhancement to harm reduction services to include SIS in our city,” his memo says. The pop-up tent isn’t enough.
Since the Sandy Hill centre has permission from Health Canada to run a permanent supervised injection site, it would manage the temporary one at the Clarence Street building, Levy wrote, provided Health Canada is OK with stretching its approval to cover the health unit’s premises.
Mayor Jim Watson opposes supervised injection sites but has stayed out of the way as the board of health has given Levy the go-ahead to help outside groups like the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre start them (other community health clinics are interested in following). Not having the health unit itself run an injection site has been important to keeping city councillors on side.
“As (health-board) members will appreciate, this situation is evolving rapidly. I am grateful for your confidence in enabling me to take the steps outlined above, which I have deemed necessary,” Levy’s memo says.
dreevely@postmedia.com
twitter.com/davidreevely
查看原文...
