New temporary safe injection sites open in Kensington, Regent Park

Two new temporary overdose prevention sites opened their doors to Toronto drug users this week as community organizations and governments step up efforts to combat the opioid crisis sweeping across the country.

The sites, one in Kensington Market and the other near Regent Park, indicate increasing acceptance of a harm reduction approach to what has become the leading cause of deaths of young people in Ontario.

"The bottom line is we don't want people to be dying of drug overdoses," said Barb Panter, manager of drop-in services at St. Stephen's Community House, which opened a temporary overdose prevention site at its Augusta Avenue location on Wednesday.

"These are deaths that are 100 per cent preventable and as long as we have the tools to prevent them, I think, as a humane society, we want to do that."

Safe injection sites provide drug users with a safe space to use previously-obtained drugs under the supervision of staff trained to revive them in the event of an overdose. Staff provide users with clean syringes and other equipment used for injecting drugs.

The Augusta prevention site is currently open Sunday to Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Although, Panter expects their hours to expand after next week.

The Kensington Market area is a hotspot for overdoses. Data from Toronto Public Health shows 46 calls were made to paramedics for suspected overdoses there in the past eight months, making it the fifth highest of the locations measured. Paramedics received 27 calls from Regent Park during the same time.

"Many of our clients have passed away due to overdose," said Panter. "We're all personally aware of how this impacts us as an organization and individuals across the city."

The second new site is run by the Regent Park Community Health Centre at its location on Dundas Street East. Both sites have the capacity to serve two users at once.

 "We're responding to an increase in the number of overdoses and an increase in the number of fatal overdoses," said Paulos Gebreyesus, executive director of the Regent Park Community Health Centre.

The Regent Park centre is currently open three days a week, after a "soft" opening on Wednesday. Thursdays are reserved for woman-identifying and transgender users only. 

The sites received approval to operate under an emergency response program introduced last year by the Ontario Ministry of Health, which provides funding and legal sanction to temporary overdose prevention sites for six months at a time.

The program requires temporary overdose prevention sites to have a "chill out" spot, where drug users can relax after using. This allows trained staff to monitor them in case of a late overdose.

A third site run by the Toronto Overdose Prevention Society at Moss Park which has been operating illegally since August 2017 also received approval under this program and is currently looking to find an indoor location to move into.

A growing problem, an expanded response

According to Statistics Canada, 2694 people died of unintentional opioid overdoses in this country from January to September 2017. Eight-hundred and twenty-nine of those occurred in Ontario.

A new study published this week by researchers at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto found the overall rate of opioid-related deaths nearly tripled in Ontario from 2000 to 2015.

The arrival of the synthetic opioid fentanyl has largely been blamed for the spike in deaths.

Coun. Joe Cressy of Ward 20, where the Kensington site is located, is supportive of the developments. He is in charge of implementing the more than 60 recommendations of the city's drug strategy, which include opening more supervised injection sites.

"[Supervised injection sites] work because they provide a safe and supportive place for people to use drugs," said Cressy. 

Cressy said one of the main benefits to these programs being run by community health organizations is that people who visit overdose prevention sites can also get connected to a lot of the other services. Drug users in need of extra support can get it from case workers, housing specialists and other service workers.

Research cited by Insite, the country's first supervised injection site located in Vancouver, shows that expanding supervised drug use can lead to decreased levels of overdose deaths, and help users get connected to housing, medical care, and drug rehabilitation programs. 

"If saving lives isn't enough of a reason there is also a financial incentive for the city to be responding this way, said Panter.

Public response muted

Panter says the local community in Kensignton has been very supportive.

Her staff conducted an outreach campaign in the area to notify local businesses and residents about the opening of the injection site. They also held an open house in March where people could get more information and concerned residents could voice their opposition.

"We expected lots more questions to be brought forward," said Panter. "I do think there is a level of knowledge that we wouldn't have seen five years ago or even two years ago," said Panter.

Cressy reported that his office has not received a single complaint related to the opening of the Kensington site.