What London can learn about supervised injection sites from Moss Park
An organizer at the Toronto site says 120 fatal overdoses have been prevented in four and a half months
As Londoners prepare for the city's first supervised injection site, there is expertise close at hand in Toronto.
A pop-up site in that city is now more than four months old, running out of Moss Park, a venue in the city's east end often frequented by drug users.
"People are literally dropping before our eyes," says volunteer nurse Leigh Chapman, one of the site organizers. "We're there to witness it and intervene immediately to prevent a fatal outome."
London announced Tuesday it was opening an overdose prevention site, a temporary measure until a federal drug exemption is granted. The location is not yet public but the Middlesex-London Health Unit says it will open in the coming weeks.
At the Toronto site, it takes more than 150 volunteers to run operations, along with seven coordinators who manage everything from scheduling to media requests.
The volunteers are either health care workers, or people who's lives have been touched by injection drug use, some having lost a loved one to overdose.
Twenty to 50 people line up every day to inject drugs in a venue they know is safe and supervised. While help is there for those who want to seek treatment, others may simply want the safety and support, Chapman explained.
"When they come into our space it's clean, it's sterile, they can take their time. The connection that we're making with folks over the last four and half months has been really amazing and beautiful to see."
The trailer, which now also provides much-needed warmth, offers free access to the overdose antidote naloxone, clean syringes and perhaps equally valuable, according to Leigh, companionship.
"Knowing that there are people who care about their well-being, who ask if they've eaten or slept in five days, that's all part of keeping people alive as well."
Chapman has heard the concerns from communities worried about safe injection sites in their backyards. Her message is simple.
"It really is about saving lives and I don't know who can argue with that, because at the end of the day people using drugs deserve to live. We have prevented 120 fatal overdoses in four and a half months, so that's 120 Torontonians who would otherwise be dead."