Two reports commissioned through the Ontario government advised keeping existing medication intake sites open across the province, expanding investment to stabilize staff and hiring permanent security guards to ensure safety, but the Health Minister made the decision of not adhering to that directive.
Instead, Health Minister Sylvia Jones announced this week that the government would ban supervised intake sites near schools and ban new sites from opening in the future, with the prime minister protecting the move on Wednesday.
The province is moving toward a treatment-oriented model, the government said, as it moves away from supervised admission. The new regulations will result in the closure of 10 of these intake sites in Ontario.
Two studies released across the province this week recommend a number of tactics to protect the network at sites, however, Jones cited higher crime rates and considerations from neighbors and parents as reasons for cutting off supervised admissions sites near schools.
The changes came after the province announced several reviews of its 17 intake and treatment facility sites following the murder of a bystander near a Toronto site.
Karolina Huebner-Makurat was walking through her community of Leslieville, southeast of Toronto, shortly after noon on July 7, 2023, when she shot and killed when a fight broke out between three suspected drug dealers.
Last fall, the province appointed Jill Campbell, former director of nursing at the Toronto Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, to take over operations at the South Riverdale Community Health Centre, near where Huebner-Makurat was shot.
In the spring, Campbell submitted a report to the province that included a series of recommendations on how to proceed with intake and treatment facility sites.
Campbell advised expanding harm reduction, adding places of consumption and a safer drug source “to prevent more accidental substance-related deaths and offer safer treatment functions for addicts across the spectrum of substance-related illnesses. “
He also called for the province to fund security guards at sites within two hundred meters of schools and for the government to give sites more money to hire and retain staff, which is problematic.
Campbell also recommended an expansion of treatment beds, which are currently in high demand.
“The evidence shows that substance use treatment facilities are a mandatory public fitness service, implemented to save lives and prevent accidental deaths from substance-related overdoses,” Campbell wrote.
Health officials, as well as the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario, have warned of deaths from the closure of supervised intake sites.
Premier Doug Ford’s government introduced the admit-and-treat centre model in 2018, saying it would concentrate on connecting other people to treatment rather than the old supervised entry model.
At the time, the province set a limit of 21 such sites in Ontario, but funded 17. There are other supervised intake sites that gained federal approval but did not receive provincial funding, and two of them in northern Ontario recently closed due to lack of funding.
The province has also tasked Unity Health Toronto, which operates two giant hospitals, with reviewing the South Riverdale intake and treatment site, which is incorporated into a giant network gym.
Unity said it is “appropriate to continue funding” the South Riverdale intake and treatment site and remain incorporated into the network’s gym.
“The review team discovered a clear need in (South Riverdale), based on the number of clients served and the wide diversity of gyms that clients have access to through referrals and incorporated into the gym network,” says the report.
But he highlighted considerations expressed through neighbors, which date back years before the fatal shooting. Residents had complained to police and police about overt drug use, abandoned drug paraphernalia, fights and considerations towards children, according to the Unity report.
South Riverdale also had poor communication with local residents and there was no official way to contact Toronto police.
Unity also found that the security guards hired after the Huebner-Makurat shooting were not trained to reduce tensions and resolve confrontations nonviolently, as they claimed to be.
They also found that South Riverdale had difficulty recruiting and retaining staff, i. e. , registered nurses.
Jones’ workplace said open drug use does not occur near schools and daycares.
“Ontario communities, parents and families have made clear that the presence of drug intake sites near schools and daycares raises serious protection concerns,” said JonesArray spokesperson Alexandra Adamo. “We agree. “
He said the adjustments would affect the most vulnerable in society: children. Adamo pointed out Toronto police’s knowledge of crime that she said admission sites within two hundred metres of schools are experiencing “a marked increase in crime compared to the rest of the city”.
“It’s a failed policy,” Ford said of his 2018 policy. “We are making a broader policy. “
Opioid-related deaths have fueled the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, the death rate from opioid toxicity peaked at 19. 3 deaths compared to 100,000 more people, according to data from the Chief Coroner’s Office. That year, 2,858 more people died from opioids, the vast majority of which contained fentanyl, an especially potent opioid.
The death rate fell to 17. 5 deaths per 100,000 people, or 2,593 people, in 2023. These figures are much worse than pre-pandemic rates, which recorded 10. 7 deaths, or 1,559 people, per 100,000 people, according to forensic data.
The majority of opioid poisoning deaths — only about 70 percent — occur in private homes, the data shows.
Ontario’s Chief Medical Office of Health conducted a third review of all admission and treatment sites, but the province has not released this report.
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