Red Deer's supervised consumption site starts phasing-out services
CBC
Operating hours for the Red Deer, Alta., supervised consumption site are now cut in half, as the facility moves to shut down by March.
Recovery Alberta, the agency in charge of delivering mental health and addiction services, has staffed a new clinic to serve the area during the daytime. But a local homeless shelter is launching a team to replace the gap at night.
"The key period when… overdoses happen right now are primarily in the evening and the night," said Percy Goddard, executive director of Safe Harbour.
In Feburary 2024, a majority of Red Deer city council voted to ask the Alberta government to close the overdose prevention site — or OPS — because they believed its clients are responsible for crime and disorder downtown.
Dan Williams, Alberta's minister of mental health and addictions, has worked to honour the city's request. Williams and the United Conservative Party government are against harm reduction measures like supervised consumption sites and safe supply, preferring to focus on recovery.
Recovery Alberta has staffed a mobile rapid access addiction medicine clinic, located in a modular unit in the shelter's parking lot, with a registered nurse, two registered psychiatric nurses, a licensed practical nurse, an addiction counsellor and a social worker.
The clinic is currently open from 8 a.m. to 4:15 p.m., Monday to Friday. It will eventually expand to 12 hours, seven days a week.
Red Deer's OPS now operates from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., down from running 24/7 in a trailer outside the Safe Harbour homeless shelter downtown.
Safe Harbour is overseeing a drug overdoses response team (DORT), staffed with two licensed practical nurses and three paramedics, who will work overnight while the OPS is closed.
None of these new services will allow people to consume their drugs. The OPS gave users a safe place to consume their own supply, with the assurance staff would intervene if they overdosed or ingested a poisoned batch.
It's still too early to assess how well the new measures are working, given they just launched, Goddard said.
Many addictions experts say recovery is an important part of the fight against a poisoned drug supply, but it needs to work in tandem with harm reduction measures so users can stay alive until they are ready to accept treatment.
Mike Parker, president of the Health Sciences Association of Alberta, believes the government is putting paramedics and nurses in a position where they have to search for people who have overdosed.
At that point, help may come too late, he said.
Run 3 Space | Play Space Running Game
Traffic Jam 3D | Online Racing Game
Duck Hunt | Play Old Classic Game
A Nova Scotia jury has found a 34-year-old man guilty of second-degree murder in the killing of battle rapper Pat Stay, a 36-year-old father of two who was fatally stabbed 2½ years ago at a downtown Halifax nightclub.
Some property owners in Saint Andrews are speaking out against a plan to refurbish the Market Wharf, although the design was chosen by the public in a community vote.
The lone survivor of a mass shooting in a West Broadway rooming house is being mourned by his family after he died in a Winnipeg hospital earlier this month, more than a year and a half after the shooting that left four others dead.
The mayor of Creighton says residents will have to remain patient, as the northeastern Saskatchewan town waits for health-care services to restart in the neighbouring city of Flin Flon, Man.
A rural municipality in southwest Saskatchewan is sounding the alarm as the worst dry conditions in almost a decade push crops and livestock to the brink.
Warning: This story contains details some may find disturbing.
A commercial food processing company has pleaded guilty to a workplace safety charge after an Edmonton worker became trapped in a smokehouse and died.
The will of a deceased B.C. woman will be contested by an old friend, her closest living relatives and a male escort approximately 54 years her junior following a decision by a provincial Supreme Court judge.
In the search for three-year-old Claire Bell, Quebec provincial police have located an important witness they say spoke to her mother on Sunday — just hours before she reported her child missing.
Toronto cop gets suspended sentence, probation for assault over fake watch sale where man later died
An off-duty Toronto police officer has received a suspended sentence and a year of probation after being found guilty of assault for forcing a Brampton man to the ground in 2021 over a fake Apple watch in a Kijiji deal gone bad.
The P.E.I. Fishermen's Association says it is closely monitoring the situation after Fisheries and Oceans Canada restricted a fishing area off P.E.I. waters due to the detection of an entangled North Atlantic right whale very close to the Island's coast.
Abuse of referees in amateur sport has been an issue for decades and all sorts of attempts have been made to curb the problem, from sternly worded signs that remind fans to be respectful to green armbands that identify novice officials to body-worn cameras that record footage from the refs' perspectives.
When his lawyer's name flashed on his phone early last month, Michael Murray ducked out to answer the call — the physician was in the middle of seeing patients at his medical clinic in Hawaii, but this call from Toronto felt important.