ICYMI: As shutdown looms, drug and treatment site customers are already “off-contracting”

This article was previously published on GuephToday.

WELLINGTON COUNTY — As the Guelph Community Health Center works to minimize the impact of closing its drug and treatment site, staff say some residents have already started jumping ship.

During an update on Guelph’s HART Hub app at a Ground Ambulance and Social Services Joint Committee meeting Wednesday afternoon, Guelph Community Health Center (CHC) CEO Melissa Kwiatkowski said many clients who they use CHC’s consumption and treatment services “are already starting to disconnect” and that I have seen fewer people using their services since the announcement.

The province announced nine consumption sites in Ontario, including Guelph CHC’s CTS at 175 Wyndham St., will have to stop providing services such as supervised safe consumption, safe supply and on-site needle exchange at the end of of March 2025 because they are 200 meters from a nursery school or school.

CTS will be replaced by 19 new Homeless and Addiction Recovery (HART) centers that are intended to provide primary care, mental health and addiction care, social services, employment support and increased availability of shelter beds, supportive housing and other supplies and services such as Naloxone, showers and food.

“What (our customers) are taking from this policy decision is that this government doesn’t care about us, we’re going to have to find our own way to understand how we can support each other,” Kwiatkowski said.

Commenting on the recent drug poisonings that occurred in Guelph outside the CTS, Kwiatkowski said he expects there will be more demand for EMS services after the closure, but he doesn’t know what it will be like.

“I think we’re getting an early indication of what things are going to look like … we’re going to see more poisonings in unsupported spaces,” Kwiatkowski said. “I think we need to make sure that people throughout the community are trained. Local businesses … bylaw staff … (because) there are a lot of people who will be part of what will now be responses that will be happening in the community, not in a contained and supervised medical environment.”

To be presented Oct. 18-25, Kwiatkowski said her HART Hub app aims to target medically complex youth and adults who need a high level of service and are experiencing homelessness or insecurity in the ‘housing and mental health and addiction.

Intended to address known gaps in the community, the application suggests providing 1,500 clients with “comprehensive support,” new clean permanent supportive housing and adding new treatment beds with a focus on detoxification, withdrawal and stabilization beds. crisis

Social Services Administrator Luisa Artuso said the clean new housing that will be provided is dependent on $1.13 million that can be purchased and provided to both the city and county.

Kwiatkowski said the project’s timeline, available capital and funding eligibility criteria are unknown.

A location for the Hub has not yet been determined, but Kwiatkowski said they would expect all services to be co-located with integrated pathways.

“We’re really going to look at all the ways we can get people the right level of care to meet their needs with the support of a team along a continuum,” Kwiatkowski said.

Although needle exchanges will not be allowed at HART Hub sites, Kwiatkowski said they are looking for ways to continue the service.

Asked if the CHC would consider offering supervised consumption at a different location until the new Hub opens, Kwiatkowski said providing the services is still technically possible, but would require a new source of funding, a federal waiver of Health Canada and an appropriate location that follows provincial regulations. .

“Our goal is to preserve all of these programs,” Kwiatkowski said. “In the midst of a health, housing and opioid poisoning crisis, we need every tool available across the continuum.”

Since 2018, the Guelph CTS has supported more than 41,000 visits, made 1,000 referrals to primary care for singles, connected an average of 44 people per month to on-demand addiction treatment and managed and reversed 311 overdoses.

There have been zero fatalities at the site.

Isabel Buckmaster is GuelphToday’s Local Journalism Initiative reporter. LJI is a federally funded program.