Somerset West health centre applies for approval of injection services

By Molly Pendergast

In the midst of a high-profile controversy over safe-injection sites in the city, the head of one of Centretown’s two community health centres says she’s anxious to gain approval for additional anti-overdose services in downtown Ottawa.

The Somerset West Community Health Centre, located on Eccles Street in Chinatown, applied earlier this year to offer supervised injection services and is waiting for Health Canada to approve the request.

According to Ottawa Public Health data, Somerset Ward has the second highest rates of drug overdose, Hepatitis C, and HIV in the city.

Naini Cloutier, executive director of the SWCHC, said that those who use the centre’s Peer Overdose Prevention Program — which provides free overdose training and naloxone kits — were involved in designing the centre’s proposed supervised injection services.

“They told us what will work and what won’t work,” she explained.

The reaction from clients at the centre has been encouraging, she added, and there is a clear demand for a fully operational safe-injection site.

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“We have a large number of people who use our services,” Cloutier said. “I get asked every day from people who are users, ‘When is this happening?’”

Ottawa Inner City Health has also applied to open a safe-injection site in the Byward Market. And Simone Thibault, executive director of the Centretown Community Health Centre, told the CBC in July that the Cooper Street facility will consider submitting an application to host a site after the completion of renovations next year.

Ottawa’s first city-sanctioned injection site opened on Sept. 26 on Clarence Street in the Byward Market. Hosted by Ottawa Public Health, the temporary site is operating under an exemption received by Sandy Hill Community Health Centre this past summer to operate a supervised injection site.

The Nelson Street health centre will be home of the permanent site, but due to renovations at that location it is not expected to open for eight to 10 weeks.

The Clarence Street site operates seven days a week, from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m.

The city opened the temporary Clarence Street site after Dr. Isra Levy, the city’s medical officer of health, sent a memo to the mayor, council and board of health on Sept. 12 detailing the urgency of the opioid crisis in the city. He advised that steps be taken toward implementing immediate interim supervised injection services.

In August, volunteers with the group Overdose Prevention Ottawa launched a controversial pop-up supervised injection site, as a response to the opioid crisis.

The pop-up site, which operates out of Raphael Brunet Park in Lowertown, is only a few blocks away from Clarence Street.

It operates seven days a week, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., but has sparked an uproar in the neighborhood and among municipal politicians. Although the Lowertown site is operating without official sanction, given the urgency of the opioid crisis across Canada and in Ottawa, police have not yet intervened to shut it down.

Catherine Hacksel, a volunteer and organizer at the pop-up site, said she believes the new site on Clarence is not accessible for all users and that the formality of the city-sanctioned site is problematic.

“When you’re in a space that’s not bureaucratic and you don’t have formal policies, you can engage with people who are even more vulnerable,” she said. “That’s why it’s so important for us to stay here– at least until there are more services available that are flexible and will make changes based on evidence and best practices and what’s really going on, on the ground.”

Hacksel said that with only two injection booths, the new site will have difficulty providing adequate services. “Best case scenario: If Clarence was packed and people really felt comfortable going there, they wouldn’t be able to handle what this community needs,” she explained.

David Gibson, executive director of SHCHC, said the goal of the planned permanent site in Sandy Hill is to offer a low-barrier threshold for people to use the service safely, and offer options for those who wish to seek treatment for drug addiction.

“From our perspective, our site will offer clients who currently use our programs and services the opportunity to engage and use safely — but also when they’re ready, they can seek treatment options,” he explained. “That is the different between a permanent site and a pop-up site.”