Medical students join call for safe consumption site funding

In a few years, they’re going to be the ones out helping to treat these problems, so a group of medical students is asking the provincial government to act now and put more money into mental health and addictions.

Specifically, they want to see funding for safe consumption sites.

“Right now, we need upstream investments to be preventing overdoses in our province. We need to transition from a reactive measure to a proactive measure,” said Ryan Krochak.

Krochak is a second-year medical student at the University of Saskatchewan, Regina general campus, and the Regina president for Students for Harm Reduction and Informed Policy (SHRIP).

He and a small group of his peers were at the Legislative Building on Monday ahead of a meeting with Mental Health and Addictions Minister Everett Hindley on the topic.

The provincial budget released last week once again didn’t include any public funding for safe consumption sites, where people can come to use drugs in a supervised space and where people are trained to intervene and save a life in the event of an overdose.

“To holistically deal with some of these issues, we need to be looking at safe consumption sites, probably safe supply, (and) drug decriminalization,” said Krochak.

He said the province also needs to address rates of homelessness, poverty, food insecurity and mental health to deal with these issues.

There were more dollars put into the mental health and addictions file in the budget, but it’s being put into things like more treatment and detox beds. That includes $2.3 million more for treatment space capacity, adding 150 beds in the coming years.

“I applaud the government for the investments that they made in detox beds but we just need a continuum of care,” said Krochak.

“It’s so important that we increase access to these services but, right now, with how potent fentanyl is in our communities, people are dying before they’re able to or ready to access these services the government has funded.”

Krochak and his group also want the province to invest in publicly funding and increasing the availability of nasal spray naloxone – an overdose reversal drug.

He said the nasal spray is more potent, works quicker and is easier to administer than the regularly available naloxone kits.

Krochak also explained the nasal spray can last longer before the opioids take over again, so it gives a person who’s had an overdose more time to get help, which could be especially important in rural areas.

“We really just want to prevent another year of record drug toxicity deaths,” said Krochak.

The provincial government said it’s looking at the nasal spray and currently has a pilot project, which puts the nasal naloxone kits alongside automated external defibrillators (AEDs). There are 18 locations so far.

When asked last week about the lack of funding for safe consumption sites in the budget, Hindley said the government is just focusing on treatment and recovery and isn’t prepared to fund safe consumption sites.

“I think that’s what everybody is looking for in this space is, ‘What is it that the government can do to help to support treatment and recovery in the long term, to help people be able to turn their lives around?’ ” said Hindley.

The provincial government does fund some harm reduction initiatives like the expansion of the regular naloxone kit availability and rapid access to addictions medicine. It’s also piloting overdose outreach teams in Regina and Saskatoon and Hindley said he fully expects those to be expanded.

Among the reasons Hindley gave for not wanting to fund safe consumption sites, he said overdoses are happening across the provinces and a site would only be in Regina or Saskatoon.

He said the government is trying to reach people where they’re at, with things like the overdose outreach teams.

“It’s not concentrated in any particular area and that’s what we’re trying to get to,” said Hindley.

“Some of the early data from the overdose outreach teams has indicated to me, as the minister, that they’re making a substantial number of contacts with people – people that have not had contact with the system before – to help partner them with an addictions counsellor, get them on a pathway towards treatment and recovery, and again, that wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t have made that connection.”

Though he didn’t outright say it, the minister also appeared to raise some questions about whether safe consumption sites would have an effect on overdose deaths. He explained his information says overdoses are happening predominantly in private homes, pointing to B.C.

“I would ask the question: Are supervised consumption sites working in British Columbia, where they continue to have record overdose deaths?” he asked.

The minister repeated several times that his government is going to focus on treatment and recovery.

“Ultimately, what we need to do is to build capacity there, so that people are able to access treatment and recovery when they need it,” he explained.

So far, in the first two months of 2023, the province’s chief coroner has reported 103 suspected overdose deaths in Saskatchewan. If that trend continues through the year, the province will see 618 overdose deaths, another record, and this one by 200 deaths.