Doctors and volunteers received a frosty welcome from Island Health security guards on Monday when they tried to set up unsanctioned overdose-prevention sites on Victoria and Nanaimo hospital grounds.
Doctors for Safer Drug Policy had planned to run two unsanctioned overdose-prevention sites this week at Royal Jubilee Hospital and Nanaimo Regional General Hospital.
The group is made up of Island physicians who say overdose-prevention services at hospitals are needed for drug users accessing health care and to reduce incidents of illicit drug use within hospitals.
“I think strategic patience has shown itself to be ineffective,” said Dr. Ryan Herriot, who helped organize the overdose-prevention sites. “Enough is enough.”
The sites will help prevent overdose deaths that would have otherwise taken place in hospital rooms and bathrooms where unsupervised drug use is taking place, he said.
Herriot, who has a family and addictions medicine practice in Victoria, noted that health-care workers have raised concerns in the media about being exposed to illicit substances used by hospital patients.
In addition to saving lives, designated overdose-prevention sites can help reduce instances of that unwanted exposure, he said.
“They are absolutely needed on hospital property, because no matter what you feel about this, people do use drugs,” he said, noting that there are already a number of overdose-prevention sites operating at health-care facilities across sa国际传媒, including St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton and Casey House in Toronto, which specializes in supporting people with HIV.
The group’s attempts to set up shop on Monday, however, were met by a large number of security guards and police.
In Nanaimo, Dr. Jessica Wilder said their group was met by Island Health security guards who threatened to remove her and other volunteers from Nanaimo Regional General Hospital grounds by force.
“They said that we would be charged and arrested for trespassing if we refused to leave. The RCMP were there with a van prepared to arrest us if needed,” Wilder said.
Those who drove to Royal Jubilee Hospital on Monday morning with a rented van to set up an outdoor overdose-prevention site were also met by security officers.
Traci Lett, a member of Moms Stop the Harm who had come from the Lower Mainland to support the site, said 12 to 15 security guards converged onto the grassy area as soon they began setting up. “It got a little tense there for a bit.”
Herriot said guards immediately began dismantling the site and did not want to talk or negotiate.
“I was repeatedly interrupted. They were not willing to let me finish a sentence,” he said. “They stole one of our tents, which they later sheepishly returned.”
By 10:30 a.m., security guards had formed a line in front of Royal Jubilee’s administrative office doors, several steps from the relocated overdose-prevention site.
Volunteers, clustered around two tents, put together safer-drug-use kits and ate snacks from a portable picnic table where pamphlets, warming packets and socks were arrayed.
After a round of negotiations between Island Health security and police, the overdose site was again moved farther away from the hospital onto a municipal-owned grass boulevard across the road.
In a statement, City of Victoria spokesperson Colleen Mycroft said the city is aware of the unsanctioned site and has reached out to organizers.
Ange Courtoreille, an outreach worker with QomQem Coastal sa国际传媒ions, an Indigenous-led outreach organization, stood next to the site with a handwritten sign showing support for harm-reduction services.
After large sections of the 900-block of Pandora Avenue were fenced off, people who are homeless and using substances are finding it harder to reach the harm-reduction services they rely on, resulting in an increase in overdose-related hospitalizations at Royal Jubilee, she said.
“They can’t access the services because they’re being pushed further and further away,” she said. “I’m having a hard time finding out where folks are … and sometimes when we find them, they’re not there anymore, they’re gone. It’s tragic.”
In Nanaimo, the overdose-prevention site moved to a lawn area after an initial encounter with police and security on Monday.
Wilder said the Nanaimo site was supported by physicians from the Cowichan Valley to Campbell River, as well as nurses, students from Vancouver Island University and social workers.
Wilder, an addictions and family medicine practitioner in Nanaimo, said the city has seen overdose deaths on hospital grounds because of a lack of overdose-prevention services for hospital patients who use substances.
“Currently we don’t have a safe place for them to use. Which means ultimately they are told that they need to leave hospital grounds,” she said.
Sometimes, that means patients will go out of sight, into bushes and “in a place where they are not found in time,” Wilder said.
Island Health declined to make anyone available for an interview regarding the unsanctioned sites on Monday.
But in a statement provided to the sa国际传媒, chief medical health officer Dr. Réka Gustafson said Island Health can’t support unapproved clinical services on its properties.
Gustafson said Island Health’s protection services team “worked respectfully with organizers” to ensure their activities did not occur on hospital grounds.
“This position is not meant to dissuade advocacy but rather to ensure that all services provided on Island Health property adhere to regulatory, safety, and clinical standards,” she said. “We welcome continued dialogue with our partners around how we can work together to improve supports for the people who use substances.”
Both Royal Jubilee and Nanaimo Regional General Hospital employ addictions medicine consult teams that work with patients who use substances to develop tailored care plans, she said.
The teams are focused on supporting patient comfort and reducing the need to use substances while patients are admitted to hospital, she said.
Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog said overdose-prevention sites have value but should be part of a broader spectrum of care, including counselling, detox and treatment.
“If the management is poor, then you are going to create more problems potentially than you will solve,” he said, noting that drug use can attract public disorder and crime.
“We have a responsibility to ensure that criminal elements aren’t attracted to these sites.”
Herriot said his group plans to continue running the overdose-prevention site in Victoria, though he declined to reveal where the site would be set up on Tuesday morning.
