Inner City Health looking forward to providing better care in permanent safe injection site
Posted Jul 3, 2019 11:37:00 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A permanent supervised injection site will be built at the Shepherds of Good Hope on Murray Street, replacing the one operating out of a converted construction trailer in the parking lot.
Minister of Health Christine Elliott was in Ottawa on Tuesday to give the good news that the province will kick in $2 million to the new site.
“We recognize that a construction trailer in a parking lot is not a good way to provide care and it's not the best thing for our community,” said Wendy Muckle.
“We're very much on the side of the residents that would like to see us tucked inside a building.”
The Executive Director of Ottawa Inner City Health explained that they've been working on this project for a year, and is pleased to see two new injection booths, and additional space for programs and treatments.
“We're going to have a clinical room where we can do dressings and different kinds of treatments, and another post-injection area. This will allow people to see staff and get treatment and care for other things.” said Muckle.
She said their current space is too tight, and people only come in when they're going to inject drugs. It also doesn't help that their volume has been steadily increasing since they opened in November of 2017.
At that time, she says they saw 70-80 people each day. Currently, they see an average of 160 people per day, and during high times, that number can easily surpass 200.
The additional clients make it challenging for Inner City Health to help fill the need that will be left by the Ottawa Public Health site if it closes.
“It would be fine if we had a steady volume, but it's really hard to stay ahead of the volume of new people showing up every day.” said Muckle, although she did say the two new injection booths will help.
Muckle said while she hopes to be in the new building early next year.
