BC nurses are outraged with proposed federal law on supervised injection facilities
Nurses are incensed the federal government appears determined to continue to frustrate efforts to provide evidence-based healthcare services to people suffering the disease of addiction across the country.
"Today's legislation will make the establishment of these needed healthcare facilities extremely difficult and puts even more documentation requirements on Vancouver's well-established InSite facility to prove its benefits if it wants to continue," says Debra McPherson, president of the BC Nurses' Union. "How does this respect the Supreme Court of Canada decision that recognized these facilities save lives? The decision required the government to allow InSite to continue and to enable healthcare organizations to develop other such facilities elsewhere."
McPherson agrees these facilities should have local community support, but the Harper government's relentless opposition to InSite - where the facility has long-standing support from the BC government, Vancouver Coastal Health, Vancouver police, local citizens and businesses - shows requirements in the legislation "are a smokescreen for the government's real agenda - pandering to prejudice and misplaced morality over healthcare, evidence and a coherent strategy on addictions and mental health."
Says BCNU vice president Christine Sorensen, a public health nurse: "It's an absolute disgrace that this legislation calls for more evidence to justify the need for these sites, when all the evidence is absolutely clear - wherever supervised injection sites have been established - whether in Europe or in Vancouver - the result has been an improvement in public safety, a reduction in infectious diseases spread through injection drug use, and an increase in the number of addicts seeking detoxification, treatment and recovery."
BCNU, whose members work to provide services at InSite, strongly supported the successful legal battle which took the case from the BC Supreme Court, the BC Court of Appeal and ultimately, to the Supreme Court of Canada in 2011, with InSite winning at each stage and the Harper government using taxpayers' dollars to fight against it every step of the way.
Resources:
BCNU's Position Statement on Harm Reduction
VIDEO: Standing Up for Healthcare: The Story of BCNU's Support for InSite and Harm Reduction