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4th supervised consumption site in Edmonton set to open Monday at Boyle McCauley

Click to play video: 'Overwhelming demand at Edmonton supervised consumption sites'
Overwhelming demand at Edmonton supervised consumption sites
WATCH Sept. 20, 2018: Edmonton's supervised consumption sites have been open for about six months now and staff say countless fatal overdoses have been prevented. Kendra Slugoski reports – Sep 20, 2018

Edmonton’s fourth supervised consumption site is scheduled to open at the Boyle McCauley Health Centre on Nov. 5.

A media tour of the site will take place in advance on Thursday.

The city currently has three other supervised consumption sites, which all opened in March.

READ MORE: Overwhelming demand at Edmonton supervised consumption sites in first 6 months

The service at the George Spady Centre sees an average of 61 visits per day, while the Boyle Street Community Services site sees about 57 visits per day.

Patients at the Royal Alexandra Hospital also have access to a supervised site in the hospital.

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READ MORE: Opioid overdoses kill 2 Albertans every day

City councillors heard an update on the opioid issue on Wednesday. While Edmonton is still recording an alarming number of deaths, the numbers are leveling off.

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As of Oct. 28, two community supervised consumption sites had nearly 19,720 visits from 835 unique individuals and 228 overdoses reversed.

READ MORE: Staff at new Edmonton supervised consumption site surprised by demand

Staff at the other sites say this fourth one at the Boyle McCauley Health Centre is desperately needed.

“They’ve had 18,000 visits so far only,” said Marliss Taylor, the program manager for Street Works. “That’s really, in a way, a drop in the bucket in the number of people that still require services. So we’re hopeful we’ll be able to see even more people.”

READ MORE: Edmonton’s first safe injection location set to open

The new centre is located at 106 Avenue and 96 Street.

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