Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) is applying to Health Canada for two new supervised injection sites in Vancouver to help fight the current drug overdose crisis.
As of Sept. 2016, 110 people have died of illicit drug overdoses in Vancouver with the majority of them happening in the city centre and the Downtown Eastside (DTES), according to Chief Medical Officer Dr. Patricia Daly.
The proposed sites will be embedded in existing health facilities at the DTES Medical and Substance Use Drop-in Centre and the Heatley Integrated Health Centre.
“The evidence is clear that supervised consumption services reduce transmission of diseases and help to connect people to health care services,” said B.C. Health Minister Terry Lake in a release.
“In the face of the current public health emergency, what is even more critical is the fact that more than three million injections have been done at Insite in the last 13 years and not one person has died of an overdose there. Supervised consumption services are a key element in the province’s multifaceted approach to respond to the overdose crisis on both the health care and public safety fronts.”
This announcement comes on the heels of a BC Coroners report showing the number of illicit drug deaths in the province for the first nine months of 2016 has so far surpassed the total number tallied for last year.
The BC Coroners Service broke down the numbers, spanning the period of Jan. 1 to Sept. 30, 2016, with 555 deaths from illicit drug overdoses, compared to 508 for the entire year in 2015. In particular, the number of drug deaths in September was 56, up from 49 in August.
These numbers continue to follow a trend seen in a previous report released by the BC Coroners in June that showed there were 308 accidental drug overdose deaths in the province from January through May 2016.
The coroner says fentanyl still remains a major contributor to the high number of deaths.
In April, the significant increase in drug-related overdoses and deaths in B.C. prompted Provincial Health Officer (PHO) Dr. Perry Kendall to declare a public health emergency, which was the first time the PHO has served notice under the Public Health Act to exercise emergency powers.
Once Health Canada approves the health authority applications, VCH said it will implement the new services and submit further applications for supervised injections sites including a women’s-only location.