Bid for 2nd safe consumption site has support, but expert says Hamilton needs opioid strategy

Hamilton's board of health voiced support for a bid by The AIDS Network to get a second safe consumption site in the city, but one local expert says the city needs a strategy specific to the opioid crisis.

Tim McClemont, the AIDS Network's executive director, said during the Monday meeting, the organization is applying to the province for a site in Ward 3, which saw one in four paramedic calls for suspected opioid overdoses in 2020.

Ward 3 (Hamilton Centre) Coun. Nrinder Nann said it was "totally disheartening and completely unacceptable" to see how the city wasn't able to establish a second site when public health was leading the charge.

"For me, it is an example of the unwillingness of the private sector to work as a partner," she said.

Hamilton established its first safe consumption site in June 2018 at the Hamilton Urban Core Community Centre on Rebecca Street.

The bid for a second site comes as new public health data shows the opioid crisis is getting worse.

"This could be one of those unintentional consequences of COVID," Michelle Baird, Hamilton's director of epidemiology, wellness and communicable disease, said.

The report shows paramedics rushed to Hamiltonians believed to be overdosing from opioids more times in August than any other month in the past four years.

The 109 ambulatory calls from suspected overdoses work out to an average of between three to four overdoses a day. 

That's an average of one overdose almost every six hours.

The report shows from January to August this year, 594 locals called 911 for suspected opioid overdoses, which is roughly 17 per week, or 2 per day. That's up from 10 per week or one per day for the same period in 2020.

The data shows 155 out of 161 confirmed local opioid-related deaths from January 2020 to March 2021 were accidental and were primarily among people aged 25 to 44.

About 79 per cent accidental overdoses were caused by street drugs and fentanyl was the most common opioid that led to accidental overdoses.

"The burden of opioid use continues to be higher in Hamilton than in many other parts of the province," reads the report.