Back to SearchKINGSTON – The Overdose Prevention Site (OPS) at Street Health Centre, a site of Kingston Community Health Centres, is hosting an open house on Thursday, June 28, 2018 from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. In addition, an information and training session, open to any members of the public wishing to gain more information about the crisis and the influence of trauma as a driving factor in the opioid crisis, is being hosted, in partnership with KFL&A Public Health, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. at 115 Barrack Street in Kingston.
The training will include presentations on the following:
- 101: The Opioid Crisis in KFL&A
- Trauma Informed Approach
- Principals of Harm Reduction
- An Overview of Harm Reduction Supplies and Street Health Services
“As the OPS prepares for its opening, we welcome members of the community into the space to get a better sense of the preventive and human rights approach taken, as well as values and guiding principles of this important and life saving initiative,” said Dr. Fareen Karachiwalla, Associate Medical Officer of Health at KFL&A Public Health.
The Overdose Prevention Site is a safe, supportive space where people may engage in the supervised consumption of their substances. This supervision reduces the likelihood of adverse outcomes like fatal overdoses and is an extension of existing harm reduction programs that provide easy-to-access, life-saving harm reduction services in a stigma-free environment, to help reduce the growing number of opioid-related overdose deaths.
“The OPS is a health service that is about connection. People who use substances are important members of our community and the OPS will allow us the opportunity to connect and offer people access to other services available at Street Health Centre,” said Dr. Meredith MacKenzie, Physician at Street Health Centre.
The OPS provides:
- supervised injection,
- harm reduction supplies, including disposal of used supplies
- Naloxone, and
- connection with community support workers
Kingston’s OPS is located within Street Health Centre, a site of Kingston Community Health Centres (115 Barrack St., Kingston, Ontario). Anyone is welcome to come to the OPS, which will be open seven days a week, between the hours of 4:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. The OPS is a drop-in service and does not require an appointment or a referral to access the site.
The opioid death rate in Kingston and surrounding communities is higher than the Provincial average. In 2016, there were more than 850 overdose deaths, 4,427 emergency department visits and 1,906 hospital admissions related to opioids, in Ontario. In the Kingston, Frontenac, and Lennox and Addington areas, between January and October 2017, there were 22 deaths due to opioids.
An OPS is one community intervention in a multi-pronged approach to address the opioid crisis. Similar interventions in other jurisdictions have shown them to be an effective way to respond to overdoses and to engage with a vulnerable population that doesn’t often seek out care and often experience many barriers to accessing health-related services. OPS’s allow for engagement and connection to other services and this pilot in particular will allow the community to gain valuable knowledge from the people who use the service. Other work to prevent opioid use and harms includes engaging with multi-sectoral partners to look at and address the root causes of drug use in our communities as well as prevent, educate, monitor and reduce harms from opioids (through naloxone distribution and safe disposal of needles).
The OPS in our region represents a partnership between Street Health Centre, a site of Kingston Community Health Centres, Frontenac Paramedic Services, HIV/AIDS Regional Services (HARS), and KFL&A Public Health though a number of different community agencies have shown their support, including the Community Drug Strategy Advisory committee, Addictions Mental Health, and Kingston Health Sciences Centre.
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