Toronto Public Health gets approval to open interim supervised-injection site
Approval comes days after opening of Moss Park's pop-up supervised-injection site
Health Canada has approved Toronto Public Health's application for an interim supervised injection site, CBC Toronto has learned.
Spokesperson Lenore Bromley said in an email that the city's health agency will soon open the site at 277 Victoria Street, the same building that will soon house a permanent supervised injection site.
Health Canada says the temporary location will open on Monday while the permanent site is under renovations.
- Toronto Public Health to open interim safe-injection site as early as this week
- Councillor 'thrilled' that 3 supervised injection sites coming to Toronto
Permanent sites to open this fall
The approval comes just over a week after harm reduction advocates opened a pop-up supervised-injection site in Moss Park, warning drug users couldn't wait for the city's official sites to open.
Three permanent supervised-injection sites were originally slated to open in the fall.
Earlier this month, the city announced it would speed up the opening of all three sites, as well as widening the distribution of the opioid overdose antidote naloxone to public health staff, community agencies and first responders.
Toronto Public Health's most recent data on opioid fatalities indicates that 87 people died from opioid use in the first half of 2016, with 135 deaths in 2015.
With files from John Rieti