On November 18, the newly organized group Doctors for Safer Drug Policy set up unsanctioned overdose prevention sites on the grounds outside at Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria and Regional General Hospital in Nanaimo. Both tents, which planned short-term runs that have now concluded, were immediately approached by private security officers, but were allowed to relocate to the sidewalk and proceed without much interference.
However, on November 19 and 20, Victoria Police Department (VicPD) officers told the volunteers to take the Victoria tent down, citing Canadian federal law that prohibits public use of unregulated drugs.
“It’s a federal law, you don’t have an exemption,” a VicPD officer could be heard saying in an audio recording shared with Filter. “You’re standing by, you’re erecting a shelter for them … you’re party to an offense, to a certain degree.”
Volunteers kept the site running, but said that fewer people accessed it after the first day, which they attribute in part to the chilling effect of VicPD efforts.
VicPD spokesperson Griffen Hohl told Filter that while operating an unsanctioned overdose prevention center (OPC) is against the law, the department didn’t arrest or disperse anyone because the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the equivalent document to the United States Bill of Rights, protects “their rights to gather peacefully and demonstrate.”
“These services ought to be provided by the employer.”
At the Nanaimo pop-up, the week played out differently. After officers helped move them off hospital ground and onto the sidewalk the first day, none appeared again.
In addition to OPC services, the Nanaimo site successfully diverted an emergency department visit by meeting someone on their way in and providing withdrawal management care in the tents. In another instance, a patient at the hospital visited the tent specifically for wound care.
Doctors for Safer Drug Policy organized the OPC in response to an overdose crisis that has recorded 16,721 deaths since it was first declared a public health emergency in 2016. It’s also a response to a political climate increasingly hostile toward people who use drugs, and more directly a response to recent complaints from nurses about patients smoking unregulated drugs inside hospitals.
“It is disturbing that doctors at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital and Royal Jubilee Hospital have had to resort to establishing [OPC],” the BC Nurses Union told Filter. “These services ought to be provided by the employer.”
The province had intended to open OPC at three different hospitals, but abandoned that decision, prompting the doctors’ response. Had the authorized OPC proceeded, they were slated to be operational by now.
Internal Vancouver Island Health Authority documents reviewed by Filter show in detail the province’s intention.
Between September 2023 and April 2024, Island Health had been drawing up plans to provide OPC services in tents and vans outside the Nanaimo hospital and then the Victoria hospital, followed by Campbell River Hospital.
The documents show that the health authority expected outdoor consumption guidelines to be released over the summer.
“Facility Based OPS,” the term used by Island Health, would have been furnished with two tables and four chairs per tent. In Nanaimo, the vans would be parked in front of the tents, which would be set up on grass so that “no parking spots will be taken.”
But by April, the documents show “all work paused based on government direction.” That was when a zero-tolerance policy toward unregulated drug use in hospitals began coming into effect in BC, amid a federal directive to recriminalize simple possession and public use.
Both the provincial and federal health authorities pointed Filter to existing services for people who use drugs at both hospitals, which center on withdrawal management.
“Operating an unapproved clinical service or demonstration on Island Health property cannot be supported,” Vancouver Island Health Authority Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Réka Gustafson told Filter on November 18. “This position is not meant to dissuade advocacy but rather to ensure that all services provided on Island Health property adhere to regulatory, safety and clinical standards.”
Hours after the Nanaimo pop-up closed at the end of its first day, a well-known, well-respected community member died of overdose in one of the Regional General Hospital bathrooms, alone. He’d been one of the first patients to access the Nanaimo OPC earlier that day.
“This is exactly the example of things that are happening on a devastatingly regular basis at our hospital,” Dr. Jess Wilder, who organized the Nanaimo OPC, told Filter. “This person, when they had access to a safe site to consume their substances, they chose to access it … when they do not have that option, they’re left with crappy options. Like dying in an emergency department bathroom. We all knew this patient. It’s incredible how many connections he made and how much everybody really loved him.”
“If we don’t get what we are very reasonably requesting from the Ministry of Health, I’m certain that we’ll be back,” Dr. Ryan Herriot, who organized the Victoria OPC, told Filter. “Our next project, after a little bit of recovery, is assisting other groups of health workers and concerned citizens across the province or across the country to do this.”
Dozens of vehicles passing the OPC at both sites, some of them bearing Island Health logos, honked in support of their efforts. The Doctors for Safer Drug Policy volunteers said they’ve been contacted by health care workers across the country, and by people in all walks in life, about replicating the initiative elsewhere.
“To clarify, BC is not designating all hospitals for overdose prevention sites,” the provincial health ministry told Filter.
Photographs via Brishti Basu. Screenshots via Anonymous.