News
Richmond safe-injecting room ‘saving lives’
Politician Fiona Patten said the controversial Melbourne facility has managed more than 1100 overdoses since opening in mid-2018.
Reason Party MLC Fiona Patten helped pave the way for the Richmond safe-injecting room.
Reason Party MLC Fiona Patten, the politician who helped pave the way for the Richmond safe-injecting room, believes the numbers are evidence ‘the centre is working, saving lives and getting people into much-needed treatment and recovery’.
New data on the medically supervised injecting centre, in the inner-Melbourne suburb of North Richmond, shows:
- the centre has managed more than 1130 overdoses – an average of three a day – between July 2018 and June 2019
- staff carried out more than 3300 health and social support interventions in the injecting centre’s first nine months
- more than 250 people have started opioid-replacement treatment or have been referred to other forms or drug and alcohol treatment, while 40 have entered treatment for hepatitis.
‘What we know is ambulance callouts dropped in the first six months of the centre opening and it has saved people from overdosing on over 1000 occasions, while connecting drug users to other drug services, including hepatitis C treatment and mental health counselling,’ Ms Patten said.
‘But we will keep working with drug users and continue to listen to the community on this issue.’
The facility’s local community has been vocal in voicing concerns with the injecting room, with many complaining that issues of public drug use, drug trafficking and antisocial behaviour have plagued the centre since it opened in July 2018.
Local residents have arranged community meetings to
air grievances and try to change the situation. A
recent meeting attracted a standing-room-only crowd of around 150 residents and was focused on presenting possible solutions to what many attendees said is a growing problem.
Yarra City councillor Stephen Jolly has been the driving force behind the meetings. He said many in the community are ‘pulling their hair out’ due to the social issues.
Cr Jolly
previously told newsGP he believes initiatives such as
Seattle’s Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program need to be enacted soon, otherwise community sentiment towards the safe-injecting room will further erode.
‘There’s an increasing minority that want it to be moved, and there’s an increasing minority that want it closed down, out of desperation,’ he said.
‘If we don’t come along with extra programs to fix the problems, if we just leave it at the injecting facility, it will mentally demoralise people.
‘We have to have further measures to … try and get these drug users off the street, and to also get these people into programs that are going to help them break the addiction cycle.’
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