INSITE HAS BECOME A PASSION

Nurse Would Be Devastated If Project Is Shut Down

Sammy Mullally arrives early at North America's first supervised
druginjection site in Vancouver's poorest neighbourhood.

"I just love Insite," says the nurse who's been working there for three years.

"It's my passion." Once inside the brightly-lit facility, she'll
stock supplies like syringes, sterile water and alcohol swabs at the
nurses' station in the main room where clients check in.

Twelve immaculate stainless steel booths across from the station,
each with a chair, a used needle drop-box and a giant mirror will
host roughly 850 injection-drug users today.

The mirrors make it easier for the nurses to watch drug users' faces
for signs of distress, Mullally says.

Next, Mullally will check the crash carts used to help people whose
hearts are close to or have completely stopped.

"Our primary job is to manage overdoses," Mullally says, adding that
they happen daily.

Although there have been 1,418 overdoses at Insite between 2004-2010,
there has never been a death.

An opiate overdose is like drowning, she says. "It depresses your
breathing until you stop."

To the untrained eye, an overdose can go undetected.

"If someone's on the street, no one catches that decline, but we can
catch that at the beginning."

Finally, Mullally will open the smaller treatment room at the back of
the facility used for other on-site medical services where nurses can
provide wound care, immunizations, pregnancy tests and counselling.
She says soon they will also offer Pap smears for women and testing
for sexually transmitted diseases.

"We have such a marginalized population here that doesn't otherwise
get health care," she says.

At 10 a.m. the staff, which includes five mental health workers and
two nurses, open the doors to an already growing lineup.

Although she's saved many lives at Insite, Mullally says the best
part of the job is forming relationships with people who don't
generally have any healthy ones.

"There is such a huge incidence of trauma and abuse in this
neighbourhood," she says. "Seeing people through referrals to detox,
treatment and to social housing - those are the successes."

In 2010, Insite staff made 5,268 referrals to health services, mostly
to detox and addiction treatment.

Although half the people who use Insite are homeless, live in
shelters or have significant mental health issues, the other half of
users are not, Mullally says

"You see grandmas in sweaters or people in suits, construction
workers, moms, dads," she says. "The most surprising thing about
working at Insite is the variety of people."

Mullally says she'd be heartbroken if Insite were shut down.

"There is such a tendency to dehumanize people who use drugs or who
have addictions as reckless or irresponsible or immoral," she says.

"When you see that these people are human beings with lives and
dignity and histories, you see that it's not a question of morals;
it's a question of health."