Safe injection site in Hamilton

With in weeks, Hamilton should have a place for addicts to inject illegal drugs with relative safety. The overdose prevention site has already been approved and funded by the province.

A room at the Hamilton Urban Core Community Health centre will be open every evening for people to use illegal drugs. They bring their own substances, and they get clean needles & syringes. In that room there will be a physician, a nurse and a peer worker, because the success in the program lies in having someone with lived experience.

Executive Director Denise Brooks says the need is so great, local doctors and nurses are willing to volunteer their time so the clinic can open before the funding arrives.

The site has been approved as an overdose prevention site, it will still allow users to somewhat safely inject opioids like heroin, but it’s not a safe consumption site. That’s a different designation for a more permanent facility, this site is temporary. The clinic gets $116 000 and a six month exemption from drug laws, but in six months the building could be gone. A developer planning a 30-storey tower is almost through the approvals process. The parking lot across the street is slotted to become a park otherwise, the location seems ideal, surrounded by emergency services and part of the general area where most of the city’s overdoses occur.

Councillor Jason Farr is reaching out to local hospitals to see if they would host a permanent safe consumption site in Hamilton’s core.