Pop-up overdose prevention site opens across the street from NRGH
Wilder said the pop-up OPS is intended to bring attention to the current toxic drug crisis and the need for better support for people. Photo: Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7fm
A group of healthcare workers and advocates attempting to set up an unsanctioned overdose prevention site at the Nanaimo Regional General Hospital were forced to relocate across the street.
During the morning of November 18th, a group of roughly 20 Vancouver Island physicians and advocates attempted to set up an unsanctioned “pop-up” overdose prevention site (OPS) at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital (NRGH) but were met by hospital staff, security and the RCMP.
Overdose prevention sites are locations where people can use substances under the supervision of trained staff that can monitor for drug poisoning and respond to an overdose if needed.
Vancouver Island physicians and advocates attempted to set up an unsanctioned OPS but were met by hospital staff, security and the RCMP. Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7fm
Organizers planned to erect the site outside the rehabilitation entrance at the hospital. CHLY was at the scene when the group was trying to figure out their next steps after being told they would not be able to operate on hospital property after not receiving approval from the Vancouver Island Health Authority also known as Island Health.
The group decided to move their site across the street on Boundary Avenue beside a parking lot for an apartment complex.
Dr. Jessica Wilder, family and addiction medicine physician and the group organizer spoke to CHLY about how the morning went.
“So we arrived here this morning, we had all of our equipment, we were ready to set up. Security here at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital came to us and said that in no uncertain terms, we'd be allowed to set up,” Wilder said. “They said that they had permission and were prepared to use force if needed, to remove us from hospital property. They had RCMP called, there was a [police] van here ready to arrest people and take them away if needed. It was a much larger response than I had expected, and I do have to say that I'm disappointed in this response by VIHA.”
Wilder is part of Doctors for Safer Drug Policy, an organization that works with people who use substances and advocates for inclusive and evidence-based care for all. The pop-up OPS was intended to bring attention to the current toxic drug crisis and the need for better support for people.
The group decided to move their site across the street on Boundary Avenue. Photo: Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7fm
Wilder said the site which was organized and funded by Doctors for Safer Drug Policy was done in an effort to save lives and draw attention to the need for an OPS at the hospital.
“We're in the middle of the biggest public health crisis that Canada's ever seen, and we are about to go into the ninth year of it,” she said. “As a physician, I took an oath–that oath is to protect my patients, which means to me to advocate for life-saving services when they're needed and not being provided, and to provide those services when I'm able to.”
As a family medicine doctor who specializes in addiction medicine, Wilder said there is evidence on how to save lives, but due to the stigma and the lack of prioritization to save the lives of people who use drugs, they are left without the resources needed.
She said she often feels like she is failing her patients, many of who are unhoused or vulnerable in the community because of the lack of resources.
She said having an OPS at a hospital is not “a ground-breaking idea” as other hospitals across Canada such as St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver have overdose prevention sites on the property.
She said if NRGH was to have one it would allow her patients in the hospital to stay and receive care while also having the healthcare workers reduce their rates of unintended exposures to illicit substances.
Wilder is part of Doctors for Safer Drug Policy, an organization that works with people who use substances and advocates for inclusive and evidence-based care for all.
“Often when people come here, they're in pain, they're just stressed–they're facing trauma from a system that has historically failed them,” Wilder said. “We need overdose prevention sites at hospitals so that people can be here, because the alternative is that they're told to leave the hospital or leave the hospital grounds when they need to use substances, or they're discharged because they're unable to have their needs met here.”
The pop-up site was staffed by volunteers trained to recognize and respond to overdose. Food and coffee were offered along with resources for referrals to treatment and detox and a tent for people to use their substances in a controlled way.
Another pop-up OPS was set up at Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria and faced a similar response from Island Health which had to move their site off-property to another location.
Wilder said healthcare workers including herself took time off from working in the hospital to volunteer at the pop-up site.
Sarah Lovegrove is a registered nurse and a nursing professor at Vancouver Island University. She came to the pop-up OPS representing herself and as a nursing professor. Last year, Lovegrove and a social work professor formed the Vancouver Island University Harm Reduction Alliance through their faculty association.
The alliance offers harm reduction education and supplies on campus as well as supports community efforts such as the pop-up site.
“I have a number of nursing students who do practicums in this hospital and in our community, and they're seeing the devastating effects of the toxic drug crisis every day in their evolving practice, Lovegrove said. “Today is an example of what we can do to take care of people in a more radical way, support them in their needs, and meet them where they're at.”
She said workers in the hospital are often overwhelmed by the effects of the toxic drugs crisis and are concerned about being exposed to substances at work. Lovegrove said an OPS or safe consumption site could solve all these problems and keep people alive, and staff safe.
An overdose prevention site is where people can use substances under the supervision of trained staff that can monitor for drug poisoning and respond to an overdose if needed. Photo: Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7fm
“In [the nursing program], we teach about social justice, we teach about advocacy. Nursing, in and of itself, is a work of advocacy–we advocate for our patients all the time, and it causes a lot of moral distress for nurses when patients can't receive the resources, care, and services that they need,” she said. “Right now at our hospital, people who use drugs are left out, and they don't have the support they need, they don't have the spaces that they need to use substances safely amidst a toxic drug crisis.”
She said they are using this pop-up OPS as a way to demonstrate to Island Health that people are willing to run and support a site at the hospital–all they need is the space to do so
“What I'm hoping from this is that island health will learn and listen and take this to heart and enact their own safe consumption site, on-site that people can access on a day-to-day basis, 24 hours a day, so they no longer have to consume drugs with a cloak of shame and putting other people at risk in the hospital,” she said.
Ann Livingston with the Nanaimo Area Network of Drug Users (NANDU) was at the pop-up site advocating for better support for overdose prevention sites in the city.
Currently, the only overdose prevention site in Nanaimo is at 250 Albert Street with services from the Canadian Mental Health Association Mid-Island supported through funding from Island Health. Right now the OPS runs from 11:15 a.m. to 9 p.m. 7 days a week, but Livingston said the hours are not enough.
Lovegrove said workers in the hospital are often overwhelmed by the effects of the toxic drugs crisis and are concerned about being exposed to substances at work. Photo: Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7fm
“Nanaimo also has one of the galloping horror death zones. So in 2023, they had 112 deaths, in 2022 they had 75, and then in 2021 they had 50 or so,” Livingston said. “So it's really an escalating and urgent situation, and we just find that's too lackadaisical to have such short hours.”
She said there is a large need for another OPS as the numbers of those dying from illicit drugs continue to grow.
“You know, it's hard to tell just how huge the numbers are and how many families are affected. Their children are left parentless, the parents are heartbroken that their child died–the brothers and sisters,” she said. “This is profoundly tragic and population-wide, it affects everybody.”
Livingston mentioned the Emergency Health Services Act that was made in December 2016 following the toxic drug crisis emergency declared the same year. The Act ordered regional health boards and provincial emergency health services to provide overdose prevention services.
“The Ministry of Health ordered this, and the health authorities aren't doing it, and then the hospital is blocking it. It's just, how would I put it? It's unconscionable. It means that some people's lives don't matter, and they don't care if they die, and they are dying,” she said.
Livingston said she is surprised by how many people showed up and hopes the attention will put pressure on Island Health to try to open an OPS at the hospital.
When CHLY reached out to Island Health for comment on the pop-up prevention site, CHLY was sent a statement from Dr. Réka Gustafson, Island Health's Chief Medical Health Officer.
Food and coffee were offered along with resources for referrals to treatment and detox and a tent for people to use their substances in a controlled way. Photo: Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7fm
In the statement, Gustafson said Island Health is “committed to ensuring all people are treated with respect and dignity, and patients who use substances receive equitable and accessible care that is free from stigma and judgement.” She states Island Health is focused on offering and connecting people to services at any stage of their journey.
She states the NRGH and the Royal Jubilee Hospital have an Addictions Medicine Consult Service team that works closely with patients who use substances and creates care plans that meet their needs and protect the safety of staff and other patients. This team focuses on care that manages withdrawal symptoms with the goal of offering patients enough comfort that reduces the need to use substances while admitted to the hospital.
Gustafson said, they “welcome continued dialogue with our partners around how we can work together to improve supports for the people who use substances.” She stressed that the safety of staff, patients, volunteers, and visitors is of importance and that “Operating an unapproved clinical service or demonstration on Island Health property cannot be supported.”
She states having the pop-up site be removed is “not meant to dissuade advocacy but rather to ensure that all services provided on Island Health property adhere to regulatory, safety, and clinical standards.”
The pop-up OPS sites in Nanaimo and Victoria are both planning on continuing to run throughout the week between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. until November 22.
Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.