After a wave of overdose deaths, Toronto public health officials are scrambling to open interim supervised drug-use sites, including one in a harm-reduction clinic near Yonge-Dundas Square that could be operating within days.
The move, announced by the city’s medical officer of health on Monday, comes after volunteer front-line workers and activists set up a controversial pop-up supervised drug-use site in an east-end park. The group, calling itself the Toronto Harm Reduction Alliance, says the city has been dragging its feet in responding to the opioid crisis.
Mayor John Tory and public-health officials have pledged to step up their efforts in recent days as reports of deaths from opioid overdoses made headlines, promising to speed up work on its planned three supervised sites. The sites will allow drug users to shoot up in the presence of a nurse, and the anti-overdose drug naloxone will be on hand in case something goes wrong.
On Monday, Eileen de Villa, the city’s medical officer of health, told reporters officials are still working as quickly as they can to get the three permanent sites ready to open this fall. But she said they now hope to open interim sites at the three clinics – The Works at Yonge-Dundas Square, the South Riverdale Community Health Centre and the Queen West Central Toronto Community Health Centre – as soon as possible.
Officials say an interim site at The Works, Toronto Public Health’s own clinic, should be ready within a week. It was not clear how soon those at the two independent health centres would open. Dr. de Villa defended the time it was taking the city to open its supervised drug-use sites, saying the clinics need to be retrofitted to ensure safety for both patients and staff.
