A two-day overdose prevention site set up Tuesday (Feb. 18) morning not far from Royal Jubilee Hospital aims to press the province to allow Island Health to provide similar services.

鈥淓very week patients continue to have toxic drug poisoning events or overdoses in hospital. Or they鈥檙e asked to leave because of substance use,鈥� said Dr. Ryan Herriot, with Doctors for Safer Drug Policy that spearheaded the volunteer service. A family doctor in Victoria, he said he had a patient the week before that left care.

鈥淭hey get sicker in the community; they get much more complicated readmission to hospital. So we鈥檙e trying to prevent all that. We鈥檙e trying to save lives, of course, we鈥檙e trying to keep the working environment in the hospital safe for everybody.鈥�

The two-day site powered by volunteers sits in the 2500-block of Richmond Road, within sight of the Victoria hospital, but off the grounds. Trained volunteers and doctors plan to provide community engagement, snacks, harm reduction and supervised consumption from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day.

鈥淚t鈥檚 to renew our demands to the (provincial) Ministry of Health to give Island Health the direction it needs to implement these services as they were going to do last year before the Ministry of Health told them to stop,鈥� Herriot said.

The popup near the Victoria hospital comes as doctors have noted an increased number of "unwitnessed overdose events" on Jubilee grounds and some staff have expressed concern about the risks of unintended exposure to unregulated substances, the group said in a news release.

Doctors for Safer Drug Policy is an independent group of physicians from across Vancouver Island who care for people who use drugs. 

In 2024, 2,253 people died of unregulated drug deaths in B.C., a 13 per cent decrease from 2023, according to the BC Coroners Service. Since the public health emergency was first declared in April 2016, the lives of at least 16,047 people in B.C. have been lost to unregulated drug toxicity.

In 2024, 81 per cent of unregulated drug deaths occurred inside with the other 19 per cent occurring in vehicles, sidewalks, streets and parks, according to BC Coroners Service statistics.

Since 2016, more than 14,000 people in British Columbia have been killed by unregulated drugs.

In April 2024, then minister of health Adrian Dix vowed to establish designated safer-use spaces in all major hospitals. More recently, Minister of Health Josie Osborne continues to refer to 鈥渕inimum service standards鈥� as a reason that this work should be further delayed, a premise Doctors for Safer Drug Policy challenges.

Last spring, the province made illicit drug use illegal in all public spaces, including inside hospitals, on transit and in parks.

The group set up similar sites on hospital grounds in Nanaimo and Victoria on hospital campuses in late 2024 鈥� shut down by Island Health. Volunteers moved their operations to adjacent spaces similar to the one set up near Jubilee.

鈥淭here鈥檚 every possibility that we may challenge them on that again in the future,鈥� Herriot said, of returning to hospital land.

Victoria does have three supervised consumption sites that offer harm reduction, none are near Victoria General or Royal Jubilee hospitals.

鈥樷�淗arm reduction is not the opposite of treatment, the opposite of harm reduction is harm. We are the physicians who provide addiction treatment. That鈥檚 what we do so we鈥檙e very much in favour of it and we see these things as complementary, not opposed to one another,鈥� Herriot said.

The BC Nurses鈥� Union fully endorses harm reduction measures meant to 鈥渟upport and assist those who experience substance use disorder.鈥�

鈥淚t is disturbing that doctors at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital and Royal Jubilee Hospital have had to resort to establishing safe consumption sites to help people struggling with substance use disorders. These services ought to be provided by the health authority,鈥� the BCNU said in a late 2024 statement. 鈥淚t is the responsibility of health authorities to implement harm reduction measures while ensuring the occupational health and safety of nurses, health-care staff and patients remains a top priority.鈥�

Moms Stop the Harm 鈥� a network of Canadian families impacted by substance-use-related harms and deaths that advocates for drug policy changes, provides peer support to grieving families and assists those with loved ones who use or have used substances 鈥� voiced its appreciation and respect for the 鈥渃ourageous leadership鈥� spearheading sites in Victoria and Nanaimo.

Moms Stop the Harm member Correne Antrovus is a staunch supporter in the fight to have a safe consumption and overdose prevention sites on hospital grounds.

鈥淲e all have loved ones that have either passed or are in active substance use and we know this is what鈥檚 needed to keep people alive,鈥� Antrovus said. 鈥淧eople leave the hospital because they need to use. They go outside and overdose and can die.鈥�

Her 35-year-old daughter is in active substance use, she added, and has lost eight peers from her grad class at Claremont Secondary.

鈥淚鈥檝e done this journey with her for 15 years so I鈥檝e learned. I鈥檝e been educated over the years on what is needed. And these are the type of things that are needed,鈥� Antrovus said.

鈥淎ll the people who are struggling with substances need to be treated as people, as humans. So many people don鈥檛 understand, are quick to judge 鈥� You have to be educated. We can鈥檛 be losing over 2,000 people a year to deadly toxic drugs.鈥�

- with files from Canadian Press