Pubdate: Thu, 14 Sep 2006
Source: Westender (Vancouver, CN BC)
Copyright: 2006 WestEnder
Contact:  http://www.westender.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1243
Author: Sean Condon

WEST END SAFE INJECTION SITE OPERATING IN LEGAL LIMBO

If not for the oversized sign hanging from an interior door that 
reads, "Harm reduction room in use; knock if you want to come in," 
anyone could walk past the safe-injection site inside the Dr. Peter 
Centre without realizing it's there.

In the injection room, there are three small stalls set against a 
large mirror, and trays upon which each addict is given his or her 
own syringe, spoon and rubber strap. There is a cleaning station 
tucked into a corner, and pamphlets about vein care and overdosing.

While this inconspicuous room accounts for a only small fraction of 
the services that the West End-based Dr. Peter Centre provides its 
HIV-positive clients, the Centre recently found itself wrapped up in 
a political storm when the federal government waited to give 
Vancouver's two safe-injection sites (the Centre; and Insite, on East 
Hastings) a 16-month extension until just two weeks before their 
mandates expired.

With most media attention focused on Insite, the Dr. Peter Centre has 
quietly been operating as Vancouver's 'other' injection site since 
February 2002. Although Health Canada considered the introduction of 
safe-injection sites to be only a trial as part of a three-year 
study, Maxine Davis, executive director of the Dr. Peter Centre, says 
the Centre decided five years ago that the need to help keep people 
alive was more important than getting the government's approval.

"The Health Canada study issue is something that isn't a show-stopper 
for us," she says. "Although we were interested in that study 
continuing, it didn't affect the Dr. Peter Centre as much."

Davis says the Centre decided it had a moral duty to open a site 
without the government's consent in 2002 when two of its clients 
overdosed outside the premises and nearly died. But it was the 
College of Registered Nurses of British Columbia's determination that 
it is within the scope of registered nursing to provide access to 
intravenous injection that gave the Centre its legal justification.

While the Dr. Peter Centre was brought into the government study with 
Insite in 2003, its status was recently thrown into doubt again when 
the Centre discovered it never officially qualified for the criminal 
exemption that would allow it to operate. It was only after the 
Centre reapplied a few months ago that it found out it had not filed 
all the necessary paperwork three years ago. (Davis isn't sure 
exactly what happened, but she suspects it is because the Centre was 
in the process of moving from St. Paul's Hospital to its current 
premises at Comox and Thurlow.)

However, Davis says the Centre will continue to run a supervised 
injection site with or without the government's approval.

"It's shameful that such misery and suffering is present in our city 
and in our country because... there's nothing actually stopping us 
from [offering a safe-injection site]," she says.

"It's almost like an artificial construct. Because someone says 
there's a law... well, we all know that laws are indeed struck down 
on occasion. Because it's a law doesn't mean it's right."

Unlike at Insite, only registered users of the Dr. Peter Centre's day 
health program can use its safe-injection room. (There are more than 
300 clients registered in the Centre's day health program, but only 
35 to 50 addicts regularly use the room.) Clients must notify a nurse 
before accessing the site, who then supervises the injection. The 
site is considered an important resource for Vancouver's HIV/AIDS community.

"The site helps [HIV-positive clients] keep themselves safe and 
healthy so they're not [overdosing] and not transmitting other 
diseases," says Paul Lewand, chair of the British Columbia Persons 
with AIDS Society.

"People with HIV and AIDS have to be very careful and clean around 
these types of things, and the best possible way for them to do that 
is with a supervised injection site."

Davis says the Centre conducted studies in 2002 that showed clients 
who used the site developed strong therapeutic relationships with the 
nurses, and were therefore more likely to seek detox or treatment.

The Centre also found quality of life to be improved among users - 
they developed better diets, were more likely to take their 
medication, and were 50 per cent less likely to be hospitalized. 
There have been no deaths on the site.

The Dr. Peter Centre is the only care facility in the province to 
offer 24-hour service to HIV/AIDS patients. It also provides 
permanent residence for 24 clients.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Elaine