Red Deer's supervised consumption site starts phasing-out services

Operating hours for the Red Deer, Alta., supervised consumption site are now cut in half, as the facility moves to shut down by March.

Recovery Alberta, the agency in charge of delivering mental health and addiction services, has staffed a new clinic to serve the area during the daytime. But a local homeless shelter is launching a team to replace the gap at night.

"The key period when… overdoses happen right now are primarily in the evening and the night," said Percy Goddard, executive director of Safe Harbour.

In Feburary 2024, a majority of Red Deer city council voted to ask the Alberta government to close the overdose prevention site — or OPS — because they believed its clients are responsible for crime and disorder downtown.

Dan Williams, Alberta's minister of mental health and addictions, has worked to honour the city's request. Williams and the United Conservative Party government are against harm reduction measures like supervised consumption sites and safe supply, preferring to focus on recovery.

Recovery Alberta has staffed a mobile rapid access addiction medicine clinic, located in a modular unit in the shelter's parking lot, with a registered nurse, two registered psychiatric nurses, a licensed practical nurse, an addiction counsellor and a social worker. 

The clinic is currently open from 8 a.m. to 4:15 p.m., Monday to Friday. It will eventually expand to 12 hours, seven days a week.

Red Deer's OPS now operates from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., down from running 24/7 in a trailer outside the Safe Harbour homeless shelter downtown.

Safe Harbour is overseeing a drug overdoses response team (DORT), staffed with two licensed practical nurses and three paramedics, who will work overnight while the OPS is closed.

None of these new services will allow people to consume their drugs. The OPS gave users a safe place to consume their own supply, with the assurance staff would intervene if they overdosed or ingested a poisoned batch.

It's still too early to assess how well the new measures are working, given they just launched, Goddard said.

Many addictions experts say recovery is an important part of the fight against a poisoned drug supply, but it needs to work in tandem with harm reduction measures so users can stay alive until they are ready to accept treatment.

Mike Parker, president of the Health Sciences Association of Alberta, believes the government is putting paramedics and nurses in a position where they have to search for people who have overdosed.

At that point, help may come too late, he said.