Canada: Vancouver’s Safe-Injection Site Adding Detox Beds and Housing

In mid-September, Vancouver's supervised injection program, Insite, will open a 12-room detox and 18-room interim housing site where IV drug users (IDUs) can seek treatment and safe housing.

At the second-floor detox site, each room will have a bed and personal bathroom. A doctor or nurse will assess the client and his or her counseling needs. The facility will also have a common area, kitchen, and examination room. As with other sites, IDUs who do not abstain from drugs must leave the detox program. Interim housing at Onsite, which will receive provincial funding for one year, will be on the third floor.

When the provincially funded Insite project opened four years ago in Downtown Eastside, addiction treatment was part of the plan, said Thomas Kerr, a researcher at B.C. Center for Excellence in HIV/AIDS. By giving IDUs clean needles and supervising injection to stop needle and equipment sharing among IDUs, and by referring IDUs for treatment, Insite has reportedly helped reduce hepatitis C and HIV rates among IDUs.

Some people "were using puddle water" to mix heroin, Kerr said outside Insite. Now, an IDU can receive clean water, a sterile syringe, and a swab and tourniquet to help find a viable vein for injection at one of 12 mirrored cubicles in front of a nurse's station. Afterwards, the IDU can wait a while in another room before leaving.

Kerr said there is generally a small window of opportunity to reach IDUs who want to quit, and if they have to wait for a bed in a treatment facility, "They get depressed, then they start using again." Vancouver's average wait for one of its 53 detox beds is two to three days, said Vivianna Zanocco, a Vancouver Coastal Health Authority spokesperson.

Insite's new services are modeled after those offered at several supervised injection sites in Frankfurt, Germany.

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