Since the supervised drug injection site (SHST) opened in early July on Cedar St. N., the manager of addictions for Timmins and District Hospital says things have been going as expected.
Patrick Nowak says the site, designed to reduce opioid overdose and death in the city, is getting 1,500 or 1,600 visits a month.
“You’re looking at one third of them actually visiting to use the consumption service that we provide,” he elaborates, “whereas the others will be split between getting harm reduction supplies and then leaving, or just getting practical supports like going to the bathroom, water or something like that.”
Addressing the dramatic decrease in ambulance calls to the site, Nowak notes that there have only been a couple of police calls, too.
“It would be interesting to see if there’s any further decreases overall since the site opened,” he observes. “We’re really looking forward to what the coroner’s reports come out with, or the number of EMS calls since to see even if those went down even further, or at a much higher rate.”
It took until September before medical staff at the consumption site had to perform opioid reversal on a user.