Health Unit Wants To Know What You Think Of Supervised Injection Services

Wednesday October 17th, 2018, 9:23am

Hello time traveller!!
This article is 2110 days old.
The information listed below is likely outdated and has been preserved for archival purposes.

The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit wants to know if you think there is a need for supervised injection services in Windsor and/or Essex County.

They are seeking community feedback to better understand the needs of the community and identify any questions or concerns related to them.

According to the Health Unit, communities across Canada have been experiencing opioid and other drug-related issues. Locally, we are facing increased illness and deaths related to the use of opioids and other drugs. Drug-related overdoses, as reported by EMS, increased from 505 in 2016 to 783 in 2017.

“Substance use is complex and requires more than one approach. Supervised injection services have the potential to address the issues that we are seeing in Windsor and Essex County, including overdose-related deaths, public injection and discarding of needles, access to treatment and other health and social services, and hepatitis C rates. Community organizations are looking into these issues, as part of the Windsor-Essex Community Opioid and Substance Use Strategy, and have started having conversation about SIS. This study will help inform these decisions,” says Theresa Marentette, Chief Executive Officer at the WECHU.

The survey is a preliminary study for the Health Unit to better understand the needs of the community and identify any questions or concerns and strategies to address such concerns.

Adults over the age of 16 years who live, work, or go to school in Windsor or Essex County are encouraged to fill out a survey at www.wechu.org/sis. The survey will be available until December 17, 2018.