By Chad Klassen

City Council endorses two mobile injection sites in Kamloops

Mar 14, 2017 | 5:30 PM

KAMLOOPS — The City of Kamloops is moving one step forward towards the reality of operating two mobile injection sites, voting unamimously at Tuesday’s Council meeting to endorse the mobile sites as the overdose crisis continues across B.C.

There have been 116 overdose deaths in B.C. through January, including five in Kamloops, as well as another one we know about that, according to ASK Wellness, happened this past week involving a 20-year-old girl. 

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“We’ve certainly put in measures to address the problem, but we haven’t fixed it,” said Tara Mochizuki from Interior Health. “I think we need to work fairly tirelessly until we actually address the problem.”

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One way is the use of a mobile injection unit, which has now been endorsed by Kamloops City Council, which officially supported the concept Tuesday. 

“It’s really awesome we are using a short-term, big crisis we have to try and help long-term success,” said city councillor Arjun Singh. “So the idea of getting people through these, and just sort of ‘ok, you overdosed, we’re going to help you out and then we’ll send you back out again.’ The possibility of helping folks is really an important one, so I really support that.”

City Council heard from Interior Health and ASK Wellness, which will be the site of one location at its North Shore headquarters at 433 Tranquille Road. The other on the South Shore will be at the Crossroads Inn on Seymour Street. It will become operational on May 1.

“The service will be staffed by a nurse and a social worker from Interior Health and will also be supplemented with a continued partnership with ASK Wellness,” said Mochizuki. 

The sites would be operational from 11:30 a.m to 7:30 p.m. They will build off what ASK Wellness has already been doing since December with a pair of overdose prevention sites, which have saved nine lives so far. 

“With the overdose prevention sites, we’ve had 929 interactions from both the nurses and the health-care workers from ASK Wellness on the North Shore, and 1,463 interactions on the South Shore. So we know these are high-traffic areas where we are going to reach people we may not have reached in the past.”

The application will be sent to Health Canada by the end of March. Included in that will be a letter of support from Council, which is intent on curbing this overdose crisis.