THUNDER BAY— The curtains are closing on Northern Ontario's only safe consumption site.
Path 525 will close its doors as of 6 p.m. Monday, despite a last minute injunction.
While the injunction makes it legal to stay open, it's not financially feasible, explained Juanita Lawson, CEO of NorWest Community Health Centres, which operates the site.
“We are concerned, of course, about people’s safety and having medical attention that they need, but I think the other thing, especially moving forward, is we know that Path 525 is and was a safe place that people could come to be connected,” said Lawson.
Lawson said while they will not be able to distribute harm reduction kits, offer safe supply or supervised injection, the HART Hub will still be an opportunity to connect people with individuals, service teams and organizations, as well as address their wound care from a primary care perspective and get clients engaged with services.
“That was a huge part of what our staff did with Path 525 in a really great way,” she added.
The province recently approved $6.3 million in annual funding for the city's Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hub, which is set to launch Tuesday. Safe consumption services and other harm reduction measures are prohibited under the HART Hub model.
As a community, she said they can still recognize there’s going to be a significant need for individuals who are continuing to use substances and need to be medically supported.
“There’s been conversations with emergency medical services, our police services, our regional hospitals and with public health about how people might be supported in a way that need to be supported, so that they don’t experience a toxic overdose,” said Lawson.
She said those are still some of their grave concerns moving forward.
Since losing her daughter to an overdose, Carolyn Karle, founder of the DEK Foundation, has advocated for addictions treatment in the city. She said she is very worried for the clients at Path 525, the support they get and their connection to next steps if they were to seek treatment.
“I am so sad for them and I can’t imagine (them) feeling that maybe we’ve all given up on them," said Karle, "and that’s not the case.”
Karle believes the closure is terrifying for the people who use the services at Path 525. She explained the centre offers clients a sort of a continuum of care.
“They do speak of all the overdoses they reverse (at Path 525) and people can go in when they have different issues,” said Karle.
Karle hopes the HART Hub will be a fantastic program and offers a lot of connection for clients.
“This is an announcement that came in August of this past year and so we’ve had a lot of time to process and to work with the ministry and Ontario Health with regards to what this closure means and also to do a lot of planning with our clients and with our staff,” said Lawson.
Staff also encourage clients to have naloxone, not use alone, use their developing drug analyzer and the Lifeguard App, offering immediate medical attention from EMS services as needed across Northwestern Ontario, said Lawson.
Individuals in need can also get help at People Advocating for Change Through Empowerment (PACE), explained Lawson.
“We’re grateful that PACE will still have their doors open. They have peer workers there that will help guide individuals and as well once we have some of our primary health care team staffed so that they will be working out of that space on a temporary basis,” she said.
On the eve of the HART Hub launch, Lawson said a lot of planning is still underway, including continuing to look at funding its staff positions and scaling up quickly, similar to many of their partners.
“This morning we had a great meeting with a lot of our HART Hub partners to really talk about some of the work that we’re doing and how we’re going to work in collaboration together," said Lawson.
"And we realize that there’s still a lot of great work that needs to happen and people are very committed.”
