By Andrew de Souza

No action from council on safe injection sites

Oct 26, 2010 | 6:25 AM

A controversial proposal for a safe injection site in Prince Albert was heard by council but resulted in no action.

On Monday, Robyn Hueser and Emily Frost, two fourth-year nursing students with the First Nations University of Saskatchewan gave a presentation about the current needs and potential benefits such a site would have in the city.

They cited statistics that showed Prince Albert to be well above both the provincial and national rates of communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C.

As well, they said the cost of running such a site would be far less than the cost unsafe injection results in, including health care and legal costs.

“What we really want to make clear is that IV drug users don’t have a safe place to go,” said Hueser.

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“Prince Albert needs a safe injection site that can refer them to a detox where they can get help.

“This also may result community, social, health care, labour and law enforcement costs.”

While their report was well researched, well-articulated and had the support of about a dozen classmates, teachers and friends, the response from council was decidedly non-committal.

Councillors had brought up before in an executive committee meeting that at the end of the day it was up to the federal government whether safe injection sites could be allowed.

At the meeting on Monday, Coun. Martin Ring said it was difficult for council to support such a decision for many reasons.

“One of the issues that we would face of council, should we go forward with this would be the placement of a safe injection is that I don’t think there’s anybody here that would stand and say ‘build it next to my house,’” said Ring.

He suggested the students keep up the work and engage in talks with the local health region about pursuing the idea.

In the end, council voted to file the presentation, essentially meaning no further action would be taken.
Though there was little action, Hueser said it wasn’t a surprising reaction.

“It was kind of what we expected – that we wouldn’t get any support,” she said.

Both Hueser and Frost had taken on the project as part of their final year of studies. They said they would look into speaking with the health region but added they were about to graduate in the summer, which would effectively end their pursuit of the project.

adesouza@rawlco.com