Overdose-prevention sites were planned for three Vancouver Island hospitals earlier this year, but the plans were scrapped following an order from the province.
Overdose-prevention sites are monitored locations where individuals are permitted to use their own illicit drugs, with medical staff on standby to administer first aid if required.
The news about the planned sites at Island hospitals was first reported by Filter Magazine, which obtained leaked internal documents showing that Island Health had been working toward introducing the service before the work was paused based on government direction in the spring. OPS locations were planned for Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria, Nanaimo Regional General Hospital and North Island Hospital Campbell River.
In a statement, the B.C. Ministry of Health told the News Bulletin that last April, the government announced a standardized approach to prevent illicit drug use in B.C. hospitals, and at that time, "health authorities took action and began working with staff to confirm our zero-tolerance policy for drug use in hospitals." A new ministry policy on substance use and addictions management in hospitals was finalized the next month.
The policy instructed health authorities to "standardize the way pre-existing overdose prevention sites function at hospital sites" and give "a consistent approach in all B.C. hospitals that prohibits the self-management (injection, inhalation/smoking or other means) by patients, outside of a designated overdose prevention service site."
While health authorities were told existing overdose-prevention services and sites could continue to operate, there was also direction that "minimum service standards" would be established for provincially funded overdose-prevention sites in B.C., whether fixed or mobile.
Dr. Jessica Wilder, who works in family and addictions medicine, organized a pop-up overdose-prevention site across the road from NRGH last week, as part pf an independent group of physicians called Doctors for Safer Drug Policy. Other groups involved in the pop-up included Moms Stop the Harm, Harm Reduction Nurses Association, Vancouver Island University Harm Reduction Alliance and Nanaimo Area Network of Drug Users.
In a statement, Doctors for Safer Drug Policy said increased overdoses at the hospital and concerns from staff about unintentional exposure to substance use indoors caused them to act and invest their own money to cover supplies for the site, which operated from Nov. 18-22.
The group is calling for the Ministry of Health to "urgently" direct health authorities to implement overdose-prevention services at hospitals.
"These Island Health documents appear to demonstrate that it [planned such services] and then, for reasons unknown, rescinded that order. This shows that the government can alter course with great rapidity. We implore it to again alter course to follow the evidence and make us all safer."
According to the group, since the pop-up site was installed, medical staff at other British Columbia hospitals have been in conversations with the group about how to proceed with their own unsanctioned overdose prevention sites.
"We will not stop until all British Columbians, 225,000 of whom are at risk of death by toxic drug poisoning, have access to this essential service at all major acute care sites," the statement noted.
Island Health deferred comment to the provincial Ministry of Health.
