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City meets with Alberta Health Services to talk supervised consumption

May 28, 2018 | 5:07 PM

The mayor of Red Deer and representatives with Alberta Health Services recently met to discuss supervised consumption services (SCS) and other health issues affecting central Albertans.

On Monday, city council approved two sites for mobile supervised consumption service for if and when a provider is granted a federal exemption.

The meeting between Mayor Tara Veer and AHS, as well as the vote by council, comes after council also changed its Land Use Bylaw last December to allow for a permanent site at the Red Deer Regional Hospital grounds.

Veer expressed The City’s and council’s desire for clarity from the Province around their planning for SCS, the community drug and alcohol strategy, needle debris clean-up, addictions treatment, and the healthcare expansion in Red Deer.

“Collaboration between Alberta Heath Services and The City is critical to finding short, medium and long-term solutions that are in the best health and safety interests of our community,” said Veer. “The lack of clear Provincial process regarding supervised consumption services locally magnifies the need for us all to work together on a go-forward basis.” 

Kerry Bales, Chief Zone Officer for Centra Zone, says, “Alberta Health Services is committed to working closely with our partners including the provincial health ministry Alberta Health, the City, and local agencies to see supervised consumption services established in Red Deer.”

Bales says they are working on solutions toward both permanent and mobile locations.

Since the meeting with Veer, AHS has also met with Turning Point and the Chief Medical Officer of Health to keep the ball rolling.

Commenting on the meeting Monday night, Veer says AHS had become more open to the idea of having SCS on their grounds. Last December, city council voted to zone the hospital grounds as the only location for a fixed SCS site. AHS is on the record as saying they weren’t keen on having anything like that on their property at this point in time.

“AHS had a better understanding of where The City of Red Deer was coming from a land use perspective,” she shared. “They recognize that it wasn’t necessarily permanent, but that it could be temporary use of their grounds and they recognized the necessity for AHS to partner with Alberta Health as well as with potential agencies looking to provide the services.”

In a release, The City says it, AHS, Alberta Health and other members of the Red Deer Coalition on the Opioid Crisis will continue to collaborate on strategies to ensure progress on SCS that is in the community’s best interest.