Front-line workers warn supervised drug site closures 'will kill'
Ethan Lang | CBC News | Posted: August 26, 2024 7:38 PM | Last Updated: August 26
Premier Ford says workers should be grateful for spending on treatment hubs
Workers on the front lines of Ontario's drug toxicity crisis say the province's decision to close 10 supervised consumption sites will result in more people dying of overdoses, and they're fighting to keep them open.
The province recently announced supervised consumption sites — designated sites where people can use illicit drugs under the safety and support of trained personnel — could no longer be within 200 metres of a daycare or school.
Ten facilities across the province, including five in Toronto, will now be forced to stop providing safe consumption services by March 2025. They will be given the option to transition into "treatment hubs."
Zoë Dodd, a co-organizer with the Toronto Overdose Prevention Society, says people will use drugs with or without supervised sites, but the risk of fatal overdoses goes up without them.
"We cannot remove these lifelines," she said, speaking at a news conference with other advocates in Toronto Monday. "These cuts will kill."
Health Minister Sylvia Jones has said supervised consumption sites near schools and daycares have prompted complaints from neighbours concerned about discarded needles and drug-related activity.
Front-line workers said Monday that closing supervised sites in these neighbourhoods will only push drug use into the open there, and result in more fatal overdoses in public spaces.
Ford says advocates should be 'grateful' for investment
But Premier Doug Ford said Monday he's not reversing the decision, saying supervised consumption isn't an effective way to combat toxic drug use.
"What works is rehab, detox beds, supporting these people with good paying jobs," he said at a news conference Monday. "That's my personal opinion."
Ford said advocates and people who use drugs "should be very grateful" the government is spending $378 million on 19 new Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hubs.
But front-line workers said treatment hubs should only be one part of the province's response to the drug crisis. Supervised consumption services are needed to keep people alive while using, they said, and ambulances and hospitals can't respond quickly enough to overdoses in private homes or on the street.
Outreach worker Lorraine Lam told reporters of the first time she found someone slumped over and blue after an overdose. She said treatment centres wouldn't have saved that person, and the province is handing out "death sentences" by closing supervised sites.
"The government says that closing the sites is about encouraging treatment in the form of rehab centres," Lam said. "We need both."
One woman who used to be addicted to opioids says she never would have been able to get off drugs without safe consumption sites.
The woman, Eve, who CBC News is only identifying using her first name because she's concerned her past drug use could impact future job prospects, says she went to safe consumption sites in Toronto every day while she was using.
"They definitely saved my life," Eve said.
She says she overdosed in these sites multiple times while addicted to opioids, but the workers there were able to give her the care she needed and make sure she was OK. Eventually, she was able to get into a treatment centre and says she's now been clean for two years.
"We do need more treatment centres," she said. "But replacing safe sites with treatment centres, it's not going to kind of just magically force people into treatment."
Workers 'devastated' by decision: union
Nas Yadollahi, president of CUPE 79, said representing workers at city of Toronto supervised consumption sites, said front-line workers are "devastated" by the government's decision.
"They see firsthand the lives they save every day, the people they help, the harm they prevent," she said. "With this new policy, thousands of people in Toronto will die."
WATCH | Supervised consumption site closures go against advice of province's own experts:
The province's decision follows the death of a Toronto woman who was hit by a stray bullet in a shooting outside the South Riverdale Community Health Centre in July of 2023. But the decision appears to go against the advice of two reviews commissioned by the government in light of the shooting.
Both reviews, published this year, recommended the province expand harm reduction resources — consumption and treatment services included.
"Evidence shows that consumption treatment services are a necessary public health service, implemented to save lives and prevent accidental overdose death," the SRCHC supervisor's report found.