Pubdate: Wed, 11 May 2011
Source: Metro (Vancouver, CN BC)
Copyright: 2011 Metro Canada
Contact: http://www.metronews.ca/Vancouver/comment/lettereditor
Website: http://www.metronews.ca/vancouver
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3775
Author: Jeff Hodson, Metro Vancouver

OTHER INJECTION SITE TO BACK INSITE IN OTTAWA

Operators of Vancouver's other -- and lesser known -- supervised
injection program will share their harm-reduction model with Canada's
highest court as a high-profile federal appeal to shutdown Insite gets
underway in Ottawa tomorrow.

"It would be unconscionable for health-care providers such as us and
Insite to send people back out on the street," said Maxine Davis,
executive director of the Dr. Peter AIDS Foundation, an intervener in
the case.

"While the outcome is specifically about Insite, we also provide a
supervised injection service.

We want to share with the court our experience and why it is
important."

While Insite, the supervised injection site in the Downtown Eastside,
has been a lightning rod for controversy since it opened, the Dr.
Peter Centre has quietly operated a small, supervised injection
program for almost a decade in Vancouver's West End.

The program, which launched 18 months ahead of Insite, is integrated
into a broad range of services that includes hot meals, art and music
therapy and counselling.

In March, Dr. Perry Kendall, B.C.'s provincial health officer,
published a report recommending that supervised injection services
(based on the Dr. Peter Centre model) be integrated into public health
clinics across the province to reduce HIV infection.

"Once many of those basic issues in your life are being taken care of
on a daily basis, you can actually begin to reflect on your life and
what you may want to do to move forward in a way that is healthy,"
Davis said.

The federal government brought the appeal to the Supreme Court of
Canada after a pair of defeats in B.C. courts. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.