Canadian Government Executive - Volume 22 - Issue 4

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The Dashboard
16 / Canadian Government Executive // April 2016
• An average of 1,028 visits per day
• 193,764 visits to the injection room
• An average of 529 injection room visits per day
• 497 overdose incidents
• 3,418 clinical treatment interventions
• 27 per cent of participants were women
• 17 per cent of participants were aboriginal
• Principle substances reported were heroin
(51 per cent of instances), cocaine (22 per cent
of instances) and methamphetamine (10 per cent)
• 4,564 referrals to other social and health
services
• 488 discharges from Onsite detox
Despite a growing number of studies indicating that supervised
injection sites (also referred to as safe injection sites) help reduce
drug overdose among addicts and the spread of diseases due to
dirty needles, there are only two such facilities in Canada.
The Conservative government was not supportive of safe injec-
tion sites and had introduced the Respect for Communities Act
which required such facilities to meet stringent requirements
including consultations with community members, public health
officials and local police, as well as providing information on local
crime rates and public nuisance incidents.
In March, 2016 Health Canada granted Vancouver’s Insite safe in-
jection facility a four-year exemption to operate. This was the first
time since 2008 that the 13-year-old facility received an exemp-
tion that was longer than a year.
Almost at the same time, municipal and health officials in Toronto
banded with community leaders in calling for safe injection sites
for the city.
Safe injection sites by the numbers:
In 2012, the Insite Clinic saw:
A shot in the arm for
supervised
injection
site proponents
2 million
number of visits
received by Insite
since it opened
1980 – The first supervised injection site was
established in Switzerland
90 – The estimated number of supervised injec-
tions sites in the world (most are in European
countries including Germany, Spain, the Nether-
lands, Norway, Luxemburg and Denmark)
2 – The number of supervised injections sites
in Canada (Dr. Peter Centre opened in 2002 and
Insite in 2003. Both are in Vancouver)
Source: Insite Vancouver
Source:
supporting-research/