Toronto to hold town hall meetings about supervised injection sites

Toronto's Board of Health will hold at least two town hallmeetings, launch an online survey and organize focus groups to find out what the public thinksabout supervised injection sites.

• Toronto Board of Health pushes ahead with plan for supervised injection sites

Shaun Hopkins, manager of The Works, the needle exchange program at the Toronto Board of Health, said the board will announce in early April the dates and locations of the town hall meetings.

"We are open to hearing anything that people have to say, both positive and negative. Let's get it out and have an open discussion," she said.

The board is recommending that the city set up three supervised injection sites to reduce the number of discarded needles,cut down the number ofoverdosedeaths, lower the incidence of public drug use and the spread of blood-borne diseases such as HIV and Hepatitis C. The sites are to be located within existing health-care facilities.

"The consultation is going to be around concerns that anybody has about the services. We are looking for input on how to address those concerns. We want to make it as accessible as possible. And we need to do it soon."

The board, which has hired the consulting firm Toronto-based MassLBP, is spending about $20,000 on community consultation, shesaid.

"The role of the meetings is to provide information, clarify misconceptions, to hear concerns," she said."Overall, it seems people agree with supervised injection sites. They can see the benefit."

Dr. David McKeown, the city's chief medical officer of health, has to report back to the board by July 4 on the outcome of the community consultation.

'There will be a lot of questions'

Hopkins said officials hope to solicit feedback from potential users of thesites, residents in surrounding neighbourhoods, businesses and business associations,and service providers, includingsuch organizationsas hospitals and drop-in centres.

The online survey would be web-based, with a linkmade available on the board's website.The board has not yet determined how many focus groups it will organize, where they will be held and the nature of the questions to be asked.

"Every injection that happens in a site is one that is not happening on the street or a public bathroom. The needle used by a client would be dropped into a biohazard container. Adverse reactions would be dealt with immediately," she said.

"There will be a lot of questions about how these siteswill work."

The three sites in Toronto would be located at The Works, the Queen West Community Health Centre and the South Riverdale Community Health Centre. The sites would provide safe, hygienic environments for people to inject drugs under a nurse's supervision.

More than 55 community leaders in Toronto signed a statement, released earlier in March,in support of the supervised injection sites.

According to research provided by the board, there was a 41 per cent increase in the reported number of overdose deaths in Torontobetween 2004 and 2013. A total of 252 people died from drug overdoses in Toronto in 2014.