Sandy Hill mulling possibility of interim supervised injection site
The director of the Oasis program at the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre—the first site in Ottawa to receive an official exemption from Health Canada to operate a supervised injection site—met with Health Canada on Wednesday to discuss the possibility of getting a temporary exemption that would allow them to provide services even before they complete their renovations.
The meeting was a preliminary one, to gauge the possibility of opening an interim site. “Now that we understand the process a little bit, we have to start thinking about whether this is something we can do reasonably, and whether this is something we can do well,” said Oasis director Rob Boyd.
He added that no decisions had been made as to whether Sandy Hill would actually move forward and seek an interim exemption.
“We have some real logistical issues, in terms of physical space, here,” he admitted. “The other issue is that I don’t have a lot of extra staffing resources.”
The move comes after Overdose Prevention Ottawa, a group of harm reduction workers, opened a pop-up site in Raphael Brunet Park in Lowertown last week. Shortly after a similar pop-up site opened in Toronto, The Works was able to secure an interim exemption that allowed them to very quickly open a supervised injection site. “We hadn’t really heard of this option before,” said Boyd.
Shortly after that site had opened, the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre offered up their parking lot to OPO to operate their site, but the group said on Sunday that while they certainly appreciated the offer, they intended to continue to operate at their current site near the Byward Market.