The Ontario government has approved $1.3 million in funding for a Consumption and Treatment Site (CTS) at Peterborough’s new Opioid Response Hub at 220 Simcoe Street.
Fourcast (Four Counties Addiction Services Team) is leading the Opioid Response Hub in collaboration with PARN – Your Community AIDS Resource Network, Peterborough 360 Degree Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic, the Mobile Support Overdose Resource Team (MSORT), Peterborough Drug Strategy, and Peterborough County-City Paramedics.
The partners in the initiative have been waiting for provincial CTS approval since late 2020. In June 2021, the federal government provided an exemption to allow the use of illegal drugs at 220 Simcoe Street, conditional upon provincial approval of funding to operate the CTS.
The partners decided to renovate the site at 220 Simcoe Street in advance of approval of provincial CTS funding, so they could become operational as soon as possible after funding approval. Renovations at the location were completed in December after over $160,000 was raised as part of the Light The Way To 160K campaign.
Services at the Opioid Response Hub will include health supports such as harm reduction supplies and wound assessment, treatment supports including opiate replacement therapy and detox, and social supports including counselling. Hub staff will also connect clients with income supports, housing supports, and cultural supports including Indigenous services.
The provincial funding approval comes days after Peterborough Public Health issued its second drug poisoning warning, with 19 different overdose-related incidents reported over the previous week. The health unit also issued a drug poisoning alert on February 4, and extended it on February 8, after detecting a total of 17 overdose-related incidents in late January and early February.
Since 2019, the Ontario government has approved 17 CTS sites in communities across the province.
