Permanent CTS site set to open in Kitchener as region sees overdose deaths rise

A permanent consumption and treatment services (CTS) site opens in Kitchener on Wednesday as Waterloo region sees an increase in overdose deaths.

Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang, Waterloo region's acting medical officer of health, said the site represents one piece of a larger harm reduction and opioid strategy to reduce fatal overdoses in Waterloo region.

"The opioid crisis continues to be one of the most important public health concerns across Canada, across Ontario and in Waterloo region," Wang said during a virtual launch held Friday.

"Up to [Thursday], 68 people in our community lost their lives to suspected opioid overdose — surpassing the total number of deaths in 2019," she added.

"Opioid overdoses continue to happen because of the unpredictability of the illicit drugs supply — often containing fentanyl — and because of the stigma and shame associated with addiction and how that influences a person's decision to use alone."

Site will allow health authorities to expand services

Kitchener Coun. Sarah Marsh thanked the region "for taking this bold step" in creating the CTS site.

"It is concerning to me the number of overdoses that we do have already this year, and it seems we are on track to surpass the 2017 highest number," she said.

There were 38 opioid-related deaths in Waterloo region in 2016. The number surged to 71 in 2017. There was a 303 per cent increase in the number of opioid-related overdose calls to paramedic services between 2015 and 2017. 

Dr. Chris Steingart, founder and executive director of Sanguen Health Centre, which collaborated with the region in establishing the site, said it will allow health authorities to expand the services they have been providing at the temporary site for the past year.

He said an incredible and almost unimaginable amount of work went into establishing the permanent site, while pointing to the challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"COVID has put a lot of barriers in place for all of us and the challenges that people living with overdose risk face on a day-to-day basis; everything has just been made more difficult by this COVID pandmeic," Steingart said.

"This opioid crisis and overdose risk, I think has been heightened by COVID. For most, if not all of the folks that are accessing these services, COVID has been nothing more than another barrier getting in the way of access to needed services," he added.

"If we can evolve as we go through COVID in the context of what has become a new normal … we're going to be in a better position to be able to keep people safer and help people move, whatever their path is, to a safer and healthier existence."

The site — located at 150 Duke St. W. — will be opened on a seven-day a week basis from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.. It's staffed with two nurses in the consumption room, support workers and a peer in the post-consumption area, a supervisor and security officers.

"We all know that supervised consumption isn't the only answer to the opioid crisis but remains a critical life-saving part of our response and we are so happy to be able to expand that response," Steingart said.

Waterloo Region Police Service Chief Bryan Larkin, who also spoke at the launch, reaffirmed the service's full support of the integrated drug strategy as well as the introduction of a full time consumption treatment site.

"We do believe that this is an important tool in the overall approach and a holistic approach and system-based approach to the complexity and complex challenges that all of us face on a regular day," he said.

Meanwhile, Kitchener Mayor Berry Vrbanovic said his city has been taking the various issues associated with street level drugs for quite some time.

"Being the largest urban centre in the region … we saw a lot of these issues before other places in the region did," he said.

"I was really proud of our council for its support of this, despite the challenges, and recognizing that at the end of the day … these are our neighbours, these are the brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles of people that we know and people in our community," he said.

"At the end of the day, they are human beings who need to be looked after from a medical perspective and I think this site has demonstrated what can be achieved when we start to look after people in a respectful, meaningful, caring way," Vrbanovic added.

Vrbanovic said the site has already made a difference and will continue to make a difference. 

"I think we all hope we get to the day when we don't need these sites but in the meantime, I also hope … that where they are needed those communities can appreciate how much this type of facility can actually make things better as opposed to make things worse," he said.