LOTS TO DO BEFORE INJECTION SITE UP AND RUNNING

The Vancouver Coastal Health Authority still doesn't know where funding
will come from for a supervised injection site, despite Mayor Larry
Campbell's prediction that one will be in place by early March.

In fact, the health authority has yet to establish a working group to put a
proposal together for Health Canada, which has said the turnaround time for
review and implementation is 60 days.

Nonetheless, Heather Hay, the health authority's director for community
health services, thinks a site could be up and running in the next few
months. But unlike the mayor, she wasn't making any predictions.

"What we'd like to do is work as quickly as possible to get the proposal in
place, get it into Health Canada and anticipate that they're going to turn
it around as quickly as possible to us," said Hay. "Certainly, that was the
messaging they gave to us when we were in Ottawa and they really are
supportive of the process."

Hay said the health authority will hire a project manager to recruit six to
eight people, including police, city hall staff, addicts, health workers
and other addiction-related workers to form the working group.

The B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and the B.C. Centre for Disease
Control will also participate.

Hay anticipated that group could be hired as early as next week and a
proposal could be ready by early February.

The proposal will also be vetted by the deputy minister of health and CEOs
from various health authorities in the region, she said.

What remains unclear is how the public will be involved, if at all. Health
Minister Anne McLellan has indicated that any site approved would have to
have the support of neighbours and merchants.

Hay said the working group is expected to get more detail from Ottawa on
that part of the process.

Until the working group is formed, Hay said, she couldn't say where a site
would be located in the city, but hinted the city will probably begin with
one site tied to a medical-related facility.

"I think right now, we'd like to start slowly and be successful, so again
that level of detail is not something we've had an opportunity to discuss
at length."

As for funding, Hay is optimistic money would be made available through the
Vancouver Agreement, which means funding could come from all three levels
of government. How much, again, is unclear.

Last Friday, a major study published in the Journal of Acquired Immune
Deficiency Syndromes found that injection sites have the potential to
provide "immediate public health and community benefits."

The study, conducted by health scientists at St. Paul's Hospital/University
of B.C., is based on interviews with 587 addicts in the Vancouver Injection
Drug Users Study. The results demonstrate that those addicts at highest
risk of acquiring infectious diseases such as HIV and those at highest risk
of fatal overdoses were most willing to use an injection site.

"At a cost of $150,000 to the taxpayer per case of HIV, we cannot afford to
delay any longer in establishing these facilities," said Dr. Michael
O'Shaughnessy, one of the authors and director of the B.C. Centre for
Excellence in HIV/AIDS.

"The status quo is not an option anymore."