SAFE INJECTION SITE OLD HAT AT DR. PETER CENTRE

The Portland Hotel Society isn't the only group in the running to open a
safe drug injection site in the city.

Both the Dr. Peter Centre and the B.C. Persons With Aids Society are also
being considered by the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority to operate
supervised shooting sites.

The Dr. Peter Centre has operated a small "harm reduction room" at its site
in St. Paul's Hospital since April 2002. Executive director Maxine Davis
said the health authority contacted her about two weeks ago asking the
centre to share its experience operating a safe injection site and to
submit an application.

In August, the centre is expected to move into a custom-built $10-million
building at the corner of Thurlow and Comox, which could accommodate a
larger injection site. The centre helps 150 clients who are HIV-positive
and live in poverty, many with mental illness and addiction problems, but
only 21 clients currently use the injection room.

The room was established after nursing staff at the centre complained about
providing participants with needles, only to send them outside to shoot up.

Nurse Wil Stewart said users used puddle water to mix with heroin, or in
some cases, their own blood, which is mixed with cocaine powder then
reinjected.

"From a nursing point of view, the idea of us providing participants with
the stuff to shoot up then seeing them go outside to, in some cases,
overdose was unconscionable," said Stewart.

Davis contacted the Registered Nurses Association of British Columbia to
seek permission to operate the site, where nurses now sit with the users
while they inject, teaching them how to care for their veins and avoid
overdoses and health problems.

The centre deems the harm reduction room a success because the incidence of
abscesses among users has decreased and some have agreed to go into detox.
Once the users are high, they open up to nursing staff, which helps the
nurses learn about the clients' condition.

Davis said the proposed safe injection site at the new Dr. Peter Centre
would only be used by participants in centre programs, though the number of
participants will increase to about 200 when the new centre opens in August.

Davis, who is on the health authority's safe injection site advisory
committee, has also allowed one of her nurses, Patti Zettel, to be seconded
to the authority to help develop protocols surrounding safe injection.

The Portland Hotel Society has also applied to the health authority for
funding to operate its injection site. The society has already built a
two-room, six-stall demonstration facility in the 100 block of East
Hastings at a cost of $30,000.

The health authority has held discussions with the B.C. Persons With Aids
Society about opening a site, but society director Ross Harvey declined to
comment.

Clay Adams, spokesman for the health authority, said the Portland, Dr.
Peter Centre and Persons With AIDS Society are the only groups being
considered to operate safe injection sites.

Adams said the authority will decide which site, or sites, to fund by the
end of this month, then advise Health Canada. He predicted the city will
likely have the first health-authority backed safe injection site in Canada
up and running by May.