New overdose prevention centre opens in Victoria

Another overdose prevention centreopened its doors Tuesday in B.C. this timein Victoria. It's the latest in a string of sites that have opened across the province, aimed at stemming the tide of fatal opioid overdoses.

Health officials on Vancouver Islandhope the new Victoria centrewill stop addicts from using alone.

It's the second overdose prevention centre in Victoria to open in a week. By year's end, it's expected just under 20 of these sites will have opened across the province.

"Right now, this is an emergency," said Grant McKenzie, a spokesmanfor Our Place Society, the Victoria homeless drop-in centre which houses the overdose prevention centre.

"So right now our main goal is keeping people alive."

• Opioid crisis prompts opening of multiple 'overdose prevention sites.'
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Drug overdoses have hit Vancouver Island hard.

The latest statistics show there have been60 overdose deaths in Victoria so far this year. The Vancouver Island Health Authority has seen a dramatic increase in overdose deaths with 19.7 deaths per 100,000 from January to November 2016, a 153 per cent increase from the previous year.

The opioid crisis has affected communities across the province, promptingthe government last week to give local health authorities permissionto open overdose preventionsites.

Warm, indoor place

These centres are different from permanent, supervised drug use centres such as Vancouver's Insite which has permanent medical staff and requires an exemption to the federal government's Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

The overdose prevention centres were set up to provide drug users with a warm, indoorplace to use drugs, in close proximity to medical staff in the event they overdose, said Dr. Perry Kendall, the provincial medical health officer.

The facilities are not permanent, and should not be viewed assupervised drug use centres under a differentname, Kendall said.

He said the temporary overdose prevention sites arein direct response to the opioidcrisis.

Need high across province

"[They]ensure, particularly duringthe cold weather, that people who are injecting will be close enough to people who aretrained withnaloxone,and they won't fall down in an alleyway behind adumpsterand not be found for several hours, by which time they will behypothermicor dead from an overdose."

Health authorities say the demand for these centres is high right across the province.

The Prince George overdose prevention centre, which opened last week, has been busy every day, said Eryn Collins, a spokeswoman for the Northern Health Authority.

Grant Mckenziesaidit remains to be seen how many people make use of the new Victoria overdose prevention site.

The drop in centre, which provides outreach services for the homeless population, has long shunned drug use on the property. The overdose prevention centre is in a shipping containerlocated outside the centre.

"We are actually sort of having to . . .change because of this emergency to try to have a safe place for people," McKenzie said.

Island Health saidmore overdose prevention sites may still open including in Nanaimo where overdose deaths have also spiked.

With files from Megan Thomas and The Canadian Press