Lack of funding and staff means no overdose prevention site for North Bay
For the time being, there will be no overdose prevention site coming to North Bay.
The District of Nipissing Social Services Administration Board (DNSSAB) received grant funding to look at options for a facility.
“There’s been a lot of passionate pleas at our board meetings how that support could save lives and I think they’re valid,” said board chair Mark King.
A study was commission by DNSSAB and conducted by the North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit. It concludes there is not enough funding and staff available to open such a facility and there is no lead agency to oversee operations.
Since many overdose prevention sites are implemented with a goal of applying to being a consumption and treatment facility, it wouldn’t fall under the health unit’s scope.
“The health unit‘s primary mandate is related to health promotion and prevention and less of a downstream of direct services which an overdose prevention site would be,” said Louise Gagné, the health unit’s executive director of community services.
An overdose prevention site can cost more than $800,000 to run each year. The spaces are for users to inject drugs while under trained staff supervision. Staff are on site to help if someone has an adverse reaction or overdose.
“Many overdose prevention sites are complimented by access to counselling, needle exchange, naloxone and other sorts of services,” said Gagné.
Health unit statistics show there were 19 opioid-related deaths in 2019 in the health unit’s area. That number more than doubled in both 2020 at 50 and 47 deaths in 2021.
This brings the rate of opioid related deaths to 65 per 100,000 people making the region the second highest of all medium-sized municipalities.
Whether a facility like this will ever come to the area, King said the city will just have to wait and see.
“My thought process now as the chair of DNSSAB now is that it’s a dead issue,” he said.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Canada's most wanted fugitive arrested in P.E.I. in connection with Toronto homicide
A suspect in a fatal shooting in Toronto’s east end last summer has been arrested in Charlottetown, just one week after he topped a list of Canada’s most wanted fugitives.
BREAKING Federal employees will be required to spend 3 days a week in the office
Starting in September, public servants in the core public administration will be required to work in the office a minimum of three days a week. The Treasury Board Secretariat says executives will need to be in the office four days per week.
Concerns about plexiglass prompt inspections at some Loblaws locations in Ottawa
Inspections are underway at more than one Loblaws location in Ottawa after complaints were filed about tall plexiglass barriers.
Plane overshoots runway at airport in St. John's, N.L., no injuries reported
Investigators from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada are headed to St. John's, N.L., after a plane overshot a runway at the city's airport this afternoon.
Poilievre unrepentant over calling Trudeau 'wacko' as his MPs say Speaker should resign
An unrepentant Pierre Poilievre returned to the House of Commons on Wednesday to pepper the prime minister about his drug decriminalization policies after being booted the day prior for refusing to take back calling Justin Trudeau 'wacko' over his approach to the issue.
Five human skeletons, missing hands and feet, found outside house of Nazi leader Hermann Göring
Archeologists have unearthed the skeletons of five people, missing their hands and feet, at a former Nazi military base in Poland.
Toddler of Phoenix first responder dies after bounce house goes airborne
A two-year-old child died after a strong gust of wind sent the bounce house he was in airborne and into a neighbouring lot in central Arizona, the Pinal County Sheriff's Office said.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh confirms his party will support the Liberals' federal budget
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says his party will support the federal budget, ending any speculation that the party could pull out of its deal with the minority Liberal government.
Dental care program accepting claims for 1 million seniors
Citizens' Services Minister Terry Beech says 1,200 seniors have already visited a dentist and had their claims processed by the federal government's new dental care plan.