The number of individual visits to The Works — the supervised injection site on Victoria Street across from the Tim Hortons — has risen nearly 30 per cent since the provincial government cut funding to two other safe injection sites in Toronto earlier this year, data provided by Toronto Public Health has shown.
Between January and August of 2018, there were 20,458 visits to the site at 277 Victoria St.; during that time, 304 overdoses were reversed. In 2019, the total number of visits jumped to 27,213, with 441 overdoses being reported during the same period.
While none of the overdoses reported at The Works were fatal — being that the primary purpose of the facility is to ensure that, if necessary, overdoses can occur in a safe and controlled manner — the spike in visits is an anomaly that staff at the facility don’t have a clear explanation for.
“We don’t have quantifiable data as to why the number of visits to The Works continues to rise year-over-year,” said Shaun Hopkins, manager of the Needle Exchange program at Toronto Public Health.
“However, Toronto Public Health has increased the number of outreach workers who speak with clients and encourage them to use sites, such as The Works, to ensure their safety, which could be increasing awareness and use of the site,” she added.
Despite lacking a clear explanation for the increased volume of visits, the information comes at a time when the future of all supervised injection sites in Ontario is unclear.
In March, Premier Doug Ford’s government slashed funding to two of Toronto’s safe injection sites: St. Stephen’s Community House in Kensington Market and Street Health’s Overdose Prevention Site near Dundas and Sherbourne streets.
The province has placed The Works “under review” but is continuing to provide funding to the facility. Both St. Stephen’s and the Street Health site have been kept open thanks to emergency federal funding, but that money is set to run out in January 2020, when both facilities will be forced to close if additional cash is not secured.
The Works relies on a combination of provincial and municipal funding.
However, the outcome of the Canadian federal election could potentially throw a wrench into the facility’s future.
Conservative leader Andrew Scheer has said in the past that he does not believe supervised injection is a good strategy to combat the country’s opioid crisis, while Ford has argued repeatedly against keeping facilities like The Works open.
“It’s all right for people to say, ‘Yes, help ’em, help ’em,” Ford said at a press conference in April, in reference to users of supervised injection facilities. “But with all due respect, if I put one beside your house, you’d be going ballistic.”
Through The Works, which opened in August 1989, individuals have the ability to bring their own drugs in and administer them safely under the supervision of qualified medical staff.
Between August 2017 and the beginning of this year, The Works had seen nearly 30,000 visits and reversed almost 600 overdoses with opioid antagonist naloxone; the facility is on track to see nearly 40,000 visits by the end of 2019.
CORRECTION: Sept. 30, 2019, 2:26 PM
In a previous version, this story reported that the province has lifted a temporary hold put on The Works’ operations. In fact, the province has placed The Works “under review,” but is continuing to provide funding to the facility.
The story previously stated the The Works opened in August 2017, and that it provides individuals with the ability to bring their own drugs in and have them safely administered by medical staff. In fact, The Works opened in August 1989, and individuals administer their own drugs safely under the supervision of qualified medical staff.
The story previously stated that Hopkins said The Works has been able to keep its doors open thanks to a combination of provincial and municipal funding, some of which indirectly comes from federal sources like the Harm Reduction Fund. In fact, The Works has always been funded by municipal and provincial funding.
The story also stated that The Works had seen nearly 30,000 unique visits between August 2017 and the beginning of this year. In fact, there were 30,000 visits total last year.
Lastly, a previous version of this story used the pronouns “he” and “him” for Shaun Hopkins, manager of the Needle Exchange program at Toronto Public Health. The correct pronouns are she and her.
We regret the errors.