WEST END SAFE INJECTION SITE OPERATING IN LEGAL LIMBO

If not for the oversized sign hanging from an interior door that
reads, "Harm reduction room in use; knock if you want to come in,"
anyone could walk past the safe-injection site inside the Dr. Peter
Centre without realizing it's there.

In the injection room, there are three small stalls set against a
large mirror, and trays upon which each addict is given his or her
own syringe, spoon and rubber strap. There is a cleaning station
tucked into a corner, and pamphlets about vein care and overdosing.

While this inconspicuous room accounts for a only small fraction of
the services that the West End-based Dr. Peter Centre provides its
HIV-positive clients, the Centre recently found itself wrapped up in
a political storm when the federal government waited to give
Vancouver's two safe-injection sites (the Centre; and Insite, on East
Hastings) a 16-month extension until just two weeks before their
mandates expired.

With most media attention focused on Insite, the Dr. Peter Centre has
quietly been operating as Vancouver's 'other' injection site since
February 2002. Although Health Canada considered the introduction of
safe-injection sites to be only a trial as part of a three-year
study, Maxine Davis, executive director of the Dr. Peter Centre, says
the Centre decided five years ago that the need to help keep people
alive was more important than getting the government's approval.

"The Health Canada study issue is something that isn't a show-stopper
for us," she says. "Although we were interested in that study
continuing, it didn't affect the Dr. Peter Centre as much."

Davis says the Centre decided it had a moral duty to open a site
without the government's consent in 2002 when two of its clients
overdosed outside the premises and nearly died. But it was the
College of Registered Nurses of British Columbia's determination that
it is within the scope of registered nursing to provide access to
intravenous injection that gave the Centre its legal justification.

While the Dr. Peter Centre was brought into the government study with
Insite in 2003, its status was recently thrown into doubt again when
the Centre discovered it never officially qualified for the criminal
exemption that would allow it to operate. It was only after the
Centre reapplied a few months ago that it found out it had not filed
all the necessary paperwork three years ago. (Davis isn't sure
exactly what happened, but she suspects it is because the Centre was
in the process of moving from St. Paul's Hospital to its current
premises at Comox and Thurlow.)

However, Davis says the Centre will continue to run a supervised
injection site with or without the government's approval.

"It's shameful that such misery and suffering is present in our city
and in our country because... there's nothing actually stopping us
from [offering a safe-injection site]," she says.

"It's almost like an artificial construct. Because someone says
there's a law... well, we all know that laws are indeed struck down
on occasion. Because it's a law doesn't mean it's right."

Unlike at Insite, only registered users of the Dr. Peter Centre's day
health program can use its safe-injection room. (There are more than
300 clients registered in the Centre's day health program, but only
35 to 50 addicts regularly use the room.) Clients must notify a nurse
before accessing the site, who then supervises the injection. The
site is considered an important resource for Vancouver's HIV/AIDS community.

"The site helps [HIV-positive clients] keep themselves safe and
healthy so they're not [overdosing] and not transmitting other
diseases," says Paul Lewand, chair of the British Columbia Persons
with AIDS Society.

"People with HIV and AIDS have to be very careful and clean around
these types of things, and the best possible way for them to do that
is with a supervised injection site."

Davis says the Centre conducted studies in 2002 that showed clients
who used the site developed strong therapeutic relationships with the
nurses, and were therefore more likely to seek detox or treatment.

The Centre also found quality of life to be improved among users -
they developed better diets, were more likely to take their
medication, and were 50 per cent less likely to be hospitalized.
There have been no deaths on the site.

The Dr. Peter Centre is the only care facility in the province to
offer 24-hour service to HIV/AIDS patients. It also provides
permanent residence for 24 clients.