Services strained with two supervised consumption sites closed

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Frontline agencies at the heart of Ottawa’s drug crisis are seeing more clients after two supervised drug consumption sites were temporarily shut down due to health and safety concerns.

Michel Morin, a block leader with the Shepherds of Good Hope, estimates the supervised consumption and treatment site, run out of a trailer at the men’s transitional shelter, has seen a 30 per cent increase since last week.

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On Friday, the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre and the Somerset West Community Health Centre closed due to reports of staff feeling unwell. An investigation is ongoing.

A statement from executive director Suzanne Obiorah said the Somerset West Community Health Centre had temporarily closed its Consumption and Treatment Service (CTS) after two recent instances of harmful fumes coming from drugs that were being heated.

“These fumes caused staff to experience nausea, dizziness, and headaches. Everyone has recovered and is fine. The health and safety of our staff and clients remain our top priority,” Obiorah’s statement said, adding that the temporary closure would allow the health centre time to consult with relevant levels of government regarding the matter.

While more people are coming to Shepherd’s trailer, “it causes other problems, because the site is equipped, but they don’t want to stay,” Morin said in an interview just outside the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre.

A former police officer, Morin says people who use the trailer get nervous with the nearby police presence.

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As a block leader, Morin patrols the streets for garbage and drug paraphernalia like needles and pipes. A few hours into his shift on Monday morning, he had already found four needles and five pipes, and filled four large garbage bags with debris.

“We’re always on the lookout because there’s kids around,” he said. “It’s a neighbourhood, not an industrial park.”

Anne Marie Hopkins, director of operations at Ottawa Inner City Health, an agency that delivers health care to the homeless in partnership with local shelters, also says services have been strained with 50 per cent of the city’s safe consumption sites closed down.

“We’re definitely seeing more visits,” she said in an interview Monday, noting their St. Patrick Street location is the only consumption site in Ottawa that is open 24 hours a day, and they typically see most of their clients between 8 p.m. and 3 a.m.

“Now, we’re seeing more visits during the day,” she said. “We’re hoping the other sites are going to be able to open,” noting the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre is located just a few hundred metres from Ottawa Inner City Health.

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Dave Bezanson lives on Daly Avenue, a few blocks from the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre. Since the supervised consumption site closed, he said he’s noticed more public drug use in his neighbourhood.

“Could be the weather, could be the injection site, I don’t have a clue,” he said. “I just know we’re seeing them more.”

A former drug user and dealer himself, Bezanson says he has a unique perspective on the drug crisis cities across Canada are facing. He believes drug dealers should face harsher penalties and that tainted drug supplies “have got to stop.”

As for the nearby consumption site, people are “going to do drugs no matter what, at the safe injection site or wherever,” he said. “That way at least there’s someone looking out for them.”

While the supervised consumption sites are closed for the foreseeable future, the sites are still offering other services, including a medical clinic, drop-in services, outreach, drug checking and distribution of harm reduction equipment.

Somerset Ward Coun. Ariel Troster said the supervised sites are “a critical service” that reverse hundreds of overdoses each year.

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She added both sites are “really sensitive to community needs,” and “if anyone in the neighbourhood has concerns, where people need assistance, they can call the facilities.”

She said the lack of spaces for safer inhalation of drugs is crucial as new toxins taint the drug supply.

In response to the closed sites, Ottawa Public Health is enhancing its surveillance of overdoses and related trends, too.

READ MORE: Changing drug habits lead to calls for safe inhalation site in Ottawa

In a memo to city council on Monday afternoon, Dr. Vera Etches, the city’s chief medical officer of health, said the public health service will “track any changes in the epidemiology related to overdose and drug-use trends and share that information with harm-reduction service providers and health-system partners so they can adapt their services accordingly,” and “consult with community members and businesses in the neighbourhoods surrounding the supervised consumption services and share that information to better understand what changes they are seeing on the ground.”

The public health agency is also working with police and first responders, and other frontline agencies, “to accelerate actions and mitigate any harms, especially as they relate to potentially higher rates of fatal and non-fatal overdoses,” the memo reads.

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