Province cuts funding to Clarence Street injection site

The Ontario government will no longer fund Ottawa Public Health's supervised injection site on Clarence Street.

The government made the announcement Friday afternoon when it revealed which sites will continue to receive provincial funding after next week.

The OttawaInner City Health site on Murray Street and the sites at the Sandy Hill and Somerset West community health centres are on the list, but theClarence Street site is not.

• Demand for supervised injection sites steady as funding decisions loom

In October, during the municipal election campaign,Mayor Jim Watson said the city would step in if neededto help the supervised injection sites, butstopped short of promising financial support.

In a statement Friday evening, a spokesperson for the mayor said he will work with Ottawa Public Health to identify the site's financial needs and explore all possible funding options. On Twitter, the mayor said he would be meeting with public health board chair Keith Egli and medical officer of health Vera Etches to come up with a plan.

Funding in doubt

Ottawa Public Health (OPH) said after the provincial announcement the Clarence Street site will remain open "in the short term," but didn't say for how long.

"Ottawa Public Health is disappointed by the decision bytheMinistry of Health and Long-Term Care that they will not be providing ongoing operating funds," the public health agency said in astatement.

Our government takes the opioidcrisis very seriously.- Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliot

OPH saidthat the operating budget for the Clarence Street is $1.2 million annually and the current round of funding ends Sunday.

According to publicly available data, the Clarence Street site is Ottawa's second-busiest, with 14,749 visits since it opened in the fall of 2017, more than a fifth of the approximately 72,000visits to the city's four sites.

Wendy Muckle, director of Ottawa Inner City Health, said she's pleased the three sites in the city are being funded, but that it's difficult to lose one as the city grapples with a bad batch of drugs.

"It's a bit overwhelming giving the last week of terrible drugs, terrible overdoses," said Muckle. "Everybody feeling like we're under siege."

"Our disappointment is in part because we don't have enough capacity for the people that come to our service as it is and we certainly don't have capacity to absorb public health."

Ottawa police said they are looking at four overdose-related deaths since Monday.

Worried about stable funding

Rob Boyd, director of the supervised injection site in Sandy Hill, also said it was disappointing that an injection site has been lost in the city.

"More people are likely to use injection and consumption services than ever before.... We really want to at least maintain the level of service, if not increase it rather than for it to go down," Boyd said.

Boyd said having funding approved for a year is a relief, but being on a yearly contract rather than having stable base funding adds stress and uncertainty for front-line workers.

In a news release,Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott defended the funding decisions.

"Our government takes the opioidcrisis very seriously," Elliot said. "That's why we've created a new consumption and treatment services model that will continue to save lives by preventing overdoses and connecting people to primary care, treatment, rehabilitation, and other health and social services."