Health unit considering seeking a federal okay for consumption site
Southwestern Public Health, so far frustrated in its efforts to establish safe consumption sites for opioid users in Woodstock and St. Thomas, is investigating pursuing a federal permit to do so.
The idea behind such sites is to have trained personnel present while drugs are being used illegally in case the user suffers a medical emergency.
Users often injected or ingested drugs when they were on their own, meaning that, if they suffered medical complications that could lead to death, they had no one to help them or give them treatment such as naloxone, which can counter the effects of an overdose.
It’s part of a “harm reduction” philosophy being pursued by health units which argue that saving a life outweighs tolerating what was essentially illegal activity.
At a public health board meeting Thursday, June 27, Medical Officer of Health Dr. Ninh Tran stated that SWPH completed in June of 2023 a feasibility study of establishing CTS sites in Woodstock and St. Thomas.
However, that required both provincial approval and an okay from each of the two municipalities involved.
Woodstock city council rejected the idea in a 4-3 vote in September of 2023.
Then, in October, the provincial government put a hold on future approvals for such sites, 17 of which had previously been established, after an incident near one.
A review was ordered, Dr. Tran said, and SWPH was waiting for that to be completed.
However, he continued, it was also considering another option, getting federal approval for an “Urgent Public Health Need Site.”
“They provide services to reduce the harms related to drug use,” he stated, and were established for a temporary period to meet an urgent need in a community.
They were similar to CTS sites and more commonly referred to as “Overdone Prevention Sites.”
He noted that OP sites received neither federal nor provincial funding, and SWPH would have to find a partner willing to operate them.
Dr. Tran said another option was more straightforward, and called the National Overdose Response Service (NORS).
It was a federal telephone hotline that a user could contact if he or she was about to use a drug. If the user didn’t call back, the hotline summoned help to the address given in the first call.
“That is the simplest option,” he said, and was federally-funded.
The health unit could make efforts to promote NORS locally, he noted.
Stephen Molnar, a provincial appointee to the health board and former longtime mayor of Tillsonburg, asked where funding would come from for a OP site, if the federal government approved one.
Dr. Tran said financing could come from public donations, municipalities or other sources.
A health unit would have to show evidence of sufficient funding in order to get the federal okay being sought, he added, “which is not easy by any means.”
Oxford Warden Marcus Ryan, mayor of Zorra Township, encouraged health unit employees to continue investigating the alternatives.
He wanted SWPH to do whatever it could to help local residents.
Rob Perry, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Aylmer Express
