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The current19:40People will die if safe places to eat close, advocate warns
Dr. Sharon Koivu says the Ontario government’s decision to close 10 supervised drug use sites in the province was disappointing, but not really a surprise.
“I am very concerned about the decision to close them [but] “I’m not surprised,” Koivu, an addiction specialist at St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital, said in an interview with The current host Connie Walker.
The plan, first announced Tuesday by Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones, bans supervised consumption sites within 200 metres of a school or daycare. Five of the facilities are in Toronto, while the other five are in Ottawa, Kitchener, Thunder Bay, Hamilton and Guelph, and must close by March 31, 2025.
The statement follows two investigations into supervised smoking areas commissioned by Queen’s Park after a woman in Toronto was struck by a stray bullet last year.
In the same announcement, Jones said her administration would invest $378 million to open 19 new Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hubs.
Despite her concerns, Koivu hopes the province’s plans will lead to a more holistic drug strategy in the long term.
According to Koivu, the focus of many advocates is on supporting supervised injection sites as a harm reduction measure, while other measures, such as addiction treatment, receive less attention.
“Damage control is important, but it is important [as] “It is one of the four pillars of addiction care,” says Koivu.
Prevention, treatment, harm reduction and enforcement are the four main pillars on which addiction experts often base their strategy.
According to Koivu, the administrators of injection centres who oversee the treatment have “lost the will to help people recover.” He adds that centres are mandated to help with recovery.
Another important component is communicating with communities near consumption sites to ensure that safety concerns are addressed, something Koivu says has been lacking since these sites were first implemented.
Koivu pointed to centres in London, Ontario, which already has two drug treatment facilities — one Indigenous-run and one specifically for youth — as positive examples. She said they were “working pretty well” so far, but cautioned that more beds are needed.
“We are well behind the number of hubs that were originally planned in the city,” Koivu said.
Safe consumption locations are the ‘pivot’ in the treatment system
Gillian Kolla, a public health researcher and assistant professor at Memorial University School of Medicine, disagrees that harm reduction advocates have lost sight of recovery.
She says safe consumption sites act as a “hub” in the treatment system, where drug users can access a range of health and social services, both on-site and through referrals.
“People who are struggling with their substance use and who want treatment go to the supervised use sites in their neighborhood because they know they will receive loving care,” Kolla said.
Ontario is introducing new rules for supervised drug use venues, including a ban on any venue within 200 metres of schools or daycares. This comes more than a year after a woman was killed by a stray bullet outside a Leslieville health centre. As CBC’s Dale Manucdoc reports, some area residents have been calling for the change.
Sarah Grieg, director of substance abuse and mental health at South Riverdale Community Health Centre in Toronto, says her team spends most of its time providing health and social support to people.
Wound care, aftercare, access to addiction medicine professionals and family doctors, and much more are all part of the care South Riverdale has provided over the past six years.
Between March 2020 and May 2024, the consumption site saw visits of more than 6,000 people and more than 9,000 referrals to other servicesaccording to federal government data.
“What we’ve learned is that care has to come to the people. We can’t expect people without stability in their lives to go to different places to get that care,” Grieg said.
According to Kolla, the lack of treatment centers in the province is one of the reasons why supervised use locations are so important.
“People will talk about waiting on hold for hours and being on waiting lists for months [for treatment]”, said Kolla. “This [supervised consumption] “So much work has been done to get people to effective treatment, but it just isn’t there.”
Advocates say closures will lead to more deaths
Grieg says she has lost more than 300 people she loves to drug overdoses — and has since stopped counting how many more have died. She fears the government’s new rules on drug monitoring sites will only mean she will lose more people she loves.
“I think bad things will continue to happen. I don’t think we’re in a position to say goodbye to the overdose crisis, unfortunately,” Grieg said.
“We haven’t gotten there yet… and that should be the goal.”
Grieg says members of her community are beginning to express a sense of “expectant grief” over the loss of a place where they felt safe.
Research published earlier this year in the medical journal The Lancet found that there are safe consumption sites in Toronto proven to be effective in reducing overdose deaths in the communities where they reside.
Kolla is concerned about the impact the closures will have on already overburdened emergency rooms and first responders as people who have suffered an overdose have to go to the hospital.
Under the new system, the province’s HART hubs will also no longer be allowed to distribute sterile injection materials such as needles.
“This is a major concern given the increasing rates of HIV and other blood-borne infections,” Kolla said.
“The distribution of sterile injection equipment has been a cornerstone of our public health approach to drug use for over 30 years.”
