The new Ridge Meadows Mobile Overdose Prevention Site, (OPS) which is set to open its doors on the hospital grounds in Maple Ridge has garnered some mixed feelings about how it will ultimately help the community.
At a recent meeting of the Maple Ridge Street Outreach Society (MRSOS), most members of the group were pleased that the mobile site will be opening its doors on Dec. 18, providing what Fraser Health is calling a safe and welcoming space to consume their own illicit substances while being monitored by support workers and peer support worker.
James Baryluk thinks the site should be located in town, where he said, everybody who would need those services is located. And, he added the hospital is a source of trauma for many who use.
“Almost every single person that the OPS is designated for have trauma going to that hospital. It seems like not 100 per cent on point,” said Baryluk.
“It seems like it’s just another thing to keep the revolving door going. To keep people paid to get rid of loiterers and users on the street. They should be able to be where they live, which is central, and not have to go there,” he said.
Baryluk, himself, overdosed after ordering crack cocaine and accidentally using fentanyl instead.
A couple of days after he was resuscitated he ended up in hospital when his vein suddenly expanded and instead of having a doctor, a nurse, or a paramedic talk to him to calm his fears, he said, they called security.
“I hate going to the hospital because I get treated like garbage,” he said, noting he still uses on occasion and does not see himself using the service.
Tracy Scott, president and co-founder of the MRSOS is relieved there is finally a place for users to go.
“It’s about time,” she said, noting that an OPS is much needed in the community.
Scott said that although the location is not optimal, she hopes, because the site is mobile, it does not have to stay on hospital grounds in the future.
The OPS is a partnership between Fraser Health and RainCity Housing and will include a customized van with an outdoor covered area for the growing number of people who inhale or smoke substances and will be open from 11:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. daily.
Wendy Richards, who works with MRSOS and who has worked with RainCity in the past as well, said she is happy one has finally opened in the community.
“They want people not to use in public, they want them off the street, this is someplace for them to go and be safe and I think it’s about time that we have something like this,” she said, adding that she is not concerned about the location, but thinks it might take a bit of time to get users over there.
“It’s going to probably be very slow in the beginning,” she said, noting that they will probably have to offer hot chocolate and coffee to attract people there.
Richards also hopes the OPS will not only support people who use illicit drugs in the community, but also assist them in getting help for their addiction if they so choose.
“If we don’t have things in place like this, we are going to have a lot more deaths on our hands,” she said.
Former Maple Ridge resident Jesse Stretch, who was a founding member of the Ridgilantes, a group organized by concerned citizens in response to the homeless camp that sprouted up along Cliff Avenue in 2015, and a vocal opponent of drug use in the city and a proponent of the need for more recovery centres, said an OPS is still not going to tackle the issues at hand.
“Nobody, in the history of time, has gone to shoot drugs in their arm and been in the process of getting high and decided that they needed help. Right? They decide they need help when they crash,” he said.
READ MORE: Overdose prevention site opening on grounds of Maple Ridge hospital
“I just don’t see that being a thing. I can see overdose recovery, right? Somebody overdoses, ends up in the hospital, then there’s somebody staffed there to give them a path out,” said Stretch. “That makes way more sense to me.”
He thinks communities need recovery centres, instead of overdose prevention sites. Stretch wonders how much money the province has spent putting multiple modular temporary housing units throughout B.C. and believes it may have been more cost-effective to centralize the housing units – possibly on the Riverview Hospital grounds in Coquitlam.
“Then you can properly staff it, then you can properly secure it, and then you can properly put treatment options right there,” he said.
Clifford Dogg, who attends MRSOS meetings regularly, said the site is definitely a good thing that will help people who need help.
“And it is right next to the hospital and everything so if anything were to happen they would get the help that they need. So that’s always good.”
However, he said, it feels like the homeless are quite frequently moved like “pawns” or being “shuffled” like cards in a deck to get them out of the downtown area of the city where businesses are.
READ ALSO: B.C.’s Road to Recovery targets those at risk of an overdose
“They are not cards in a deck, they’re human beings,” he said.
Gord Stark, who has lived in Maple Ridge for more than 60 years, his entire life, was a user of crystal meth for 12 years. He says he has now been clean for more than a year after weening himself off the substance.
Stark said he had been pushing the idea of an OPS site in Maple Ridge through the MRSOS.
“We [MRSOS] had a business engagement program and that’s where I’d try to get it out there that that’s what we need,” he said. “Because there’s nowhere for these people to go and that’s why they are all over the streets.”
He said he was surprised to hear about one opening and said it could be closer to the downtown core, but it’s a start.
Gerry Sharpe attends the MRSOS meetings every week and lives in the modular housing on Burnett Street.
He said he has lost a lot of friends over the years and called the OPS welcome news.
“It’s a good thing because it’s going to save a lot more lives,” he said.
