I wrote about supervised consumption sites in Alberta this year for @AlbertaViewsMag. I spent time at SCSs and talked to families whose kids were exposed to used needles. This is what I learned.
SCSs in Alberta have responded to 1,300+ overdoses in the last year based on the #s I've seen. (For comparison, there were 299 traffic fatalities in AB in 2016). Lives saved are an easy outcome to measure. But there are other benefits that are less easy to measure.
These things directly affect the broader population if you're unimpressed by #s of lives saved. There have been tens of thousands of client visits to SCSs—every one is drug use taken out of a public space and into a supervised site.
SCS take pressures off the health system. Drug-related visits to ERs, EMS activations can be prevented when people use SCS. SCSs reduce risk of skin and soft-tissue abscesses, a problem among injection drug users, which leads to costly hospitalizations for incision, drainage.
Costly hospitalizations tie up hospital beds, obviously.
A consequence of the opioid crisis is increased incidence of blood-borne infections, including hepatitis and HIV. SCSs cut down risk of disease spread by encouraging safe needle practices. It's naive to think these diseases spread only to people using drugs. These affect us all.
It is HORRIBLE when a child is exposed to a discarded needle. FULL STOP. We need to figure out ways to prevent this.
This problem didn't begin when SCS were opened. The Canadian Paediatric Society (CPS) put out its first statement on it in 2008. It's been a concern for a long time.
In Canada, to date, there have been two case reports of HBV and three of HBC transmission and no reported transmission of HIV following injuries by needles discarded in this community.
So, what to do? Closing SCS isn't going to stop the problem. We need more people to use drugs at SCSs rather than public spaces; more disposal boxes (personal and public); effective, responsive clean-up programs. ***311 should NOT be saying discarded needles are your problem.***
Since '08, the CPS recommends children should be taught not to handle syringes and needles, and to report finding them to a responsible adult. They put out updated guidelines earlier this month: cps.ca/en/documents/p…
Among the things they call for to protect kids from needle stick injuries: Programs should be in place for the treatment and control of injection drug addiction, and to adequately support HIV prevention, HBV vaccination, and needle exchange programs for injection drug users.
Dehumanizing people who use drugs isn't going to help anyone. If you're still reading, here's my story for @AlbertaViewsMag. albertaviews.ca/reducing-the-h…
