Needs assessment on supervised consumption finds majority would use facility

As the conversation about supervised consumption services continued inside city council chambers Tuesday, some data has finally been released from the recent needs assessment done in our community.

The study was conducted by the Red Deer Coalition on the Opioid Crisis, which was managed by Turning Point.

A presentation Tuesday evening was the first time Turning Point had been able to share some details of its needs assessment completed October 31. Alberta Health has been hanging onto it ever since.

Among the data collected from 258 community members who use drugs, 28.7 per cent said they’d overdosed in the last six months and 57.9 per cent said they’d witnessed someone overdose. More than 86 per cent said they’d be willing to use supervised consumption services if they were offered in Red Deer. Turning Point serves about 1600 clients at this time, a number officials say is always increasing.

The majority of respondents make under $20,000 per year. Meth was atop the list of most consumed substances at 73.9 per cent of participants, 55 per cent said they use cocaine. Thirty-one percent were female, 69 per cent male and 0.4 per cent were transgender.

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The province is yet to make any type of commitment to Red Deer for supervised consumption services.

“It would be our interpretation of the research that we would benefit from a supervised consumption service in Red Deer,” said Stacey Carmichael, Executive Director at Turning Point. “We’re expecting to hear from the province (in early January). We need their recommendation to complete our federal exemption and obviously we need their funding to operate this service.”

Also noteworthy, participants were asked their preferred location for a supervised consumption site, Naerly all, 95.9 per cent, said they’d like to see one at the current Turning Point location at 4611 50 Avenue. Eighty per cent said they’d use one at Safe Harbour, 70 per cent said they’d use a mobile service, while 62.5 per cent said they’d be willing to go to one at a health clinic or the hospital.

The needs assessment found Turning Point to be the ideal spot not only because they’ve been the local experts for 30 years, but because they have capacity and established relationships there. Turning Point hopes if SCS is approved for Red Deer, they could also get the dollars to fund a staff member who would conduct a daily morning needle sweep 1 kilometre in every direction from the supervised consumption site.

The assessment concludes that if there were SCS in Red Deer, there would be decreased public drug use downtown, an increase to needle cleanup, no increase to foot traffic and improved esthetics at Turning Point both indoors and outdoors.

A supervised consumption site would also include wrap-around services, a key aspect of what the community voiced at information sessions held in the summer. Wrap-around services may include access to opioid replacement therapy, housing and ID support, and mental health support.

Once the province finalizes its decision for SCS in Red Deer, which Carmichael says she’d be surprised if they say no, then federal exemptions have been taking as short as three weeks to be granted.

“Then we could get rolling,” Carmichael noted. “Potentially open in the summer or the spring, if everything goes well.”