Three Ontario cities have been waiting a year or more for the province to approve their applications for consumption and treatment services sites — a delay Ontario's health minister is blaming on the pandemic.
Cathy Eisener, a local public health nurse, says she doesn't think the site would have saved everyone who's died as the city waits.At a recent committee meeting at Queen's Park, NDP health critic France Gélinas asked the health minister about the delay in approving a site in Sudbury, which has also been waiting over a year and a half for approval.
From a public health perspective, Eisener added, there was a recognition that toxic opioid deaths were trending upward during COVID and she, personally, was switched back from COVID work to harm reduction in July 2020. "Certainly, the pandemic has been preoccupying for all of us — not only in the health sector, but you know, broadly speaking," she said, but added that "harm reduction is not unimportant."
Both Windsor and Sudbury have moved forward with opening supervised consumption sites in the location where they've applied for provincial funding. Health Canada has granted them exemptions from federal drug laws to do so and they've secured local funding.Sutcliffe said the City of Greater Sudbury has committed the funding — just over $1 million, annualized — to continue the site through the calendar year, but after that, its future is uncertain.
At the committee meeting, associate deputy minister of public health Elizabeth Walker said there are two more applications with the ministry that are not fully complete, but did not identify what communities they are for, and said she had no timeline for when the outstanding applications will be approved, or denied, but would continue to work with the government on the issue.
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