New data suggests Manitoba’s only overdose prevention site received more than 26,000 visits during its first year of operations.
There were just 20 overdoses and no deaths.
Sunshine House, a drop-in and resource centre, released the data Monday, ahead of Thursday’s release of a comprehensive, 91-page report on the findings from the organization’s Mobile Overdose Prevention Site.
“This evaluation shows the positive impacts that MOPS has had, and how life-saving and life-changing peer-led supervised consumption spaces can be,” Sunshine House executive director Levi Foy said in a statement. “We’re looking forward to sharing this story with the broader community.”
MOPS, which is run by people with lived experience using substances, is a retrofitted RV that travels to different locations around the city, allowing people to consume their own drugs under supervision. The site began operating on Oct. 28, 2022, amid an escalating toxic drug crisis in the province and a lack of harm-reduction measures, such as brick-and-mortar supervised consumption sites.
The NDP government, elected in October, has committed to establishing a supervised consumption site in downtown Winnipeg next year. This year, they will be conducting consultations regarding what services the site will offer and where it will be located.
Sunshine House is one of the groups lobbying the province to accept a proposal to appoint the Aboriginal Health and Wellness Centre to lead the supervised consumption site project. The premier and addictions minister have said they are considering it.
Other data included in the MOPS release: approximately 7,000 of the just over 26,000 visits to the site involved people consuming drugs; people also access the service for harm reduction supplies or just to grab a cup of coffee. There were only four instances when someone, at their request, needed to be taken to hospital after consuming drugs. Naloxone, which can reverse opioid overdoses, was used 82 times.
Just 0.08 per cent of all visits ended in an overdose.
Preliminary data released by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner shows there were 445 drug-related deaths last year, down slightly from 467 in 2022, but up from 432 in 2021.
Meanwhile, a new study from researchers at the University of Toronto suggests opioid deaths are rising more dramatically in Manitoba than elsewhere.
The study, published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, looked at accidental opioid-related deaths across Canada between Jan. 1, 2019 and Dec. 31, 2021. It found Manitoba saw the sharpest rise in overdose deaths for those aged 30 to 39 – reaching 500 deaths per million population, more than five times the 89 deaths per million population recorded at the beginning of the study period.
“Prior to 2021, Manitoba had lower rates of opioid-related deaths compared to the national average of what we were seeing, but once the pandemic arrived… we saw about a five-fold increase,” senior author Tara Gomes told the Free Press.
“We’ve really seen in Manitoba this really rapid acceleration in opioid deaths.”
Gomes said the research suggests one out of 31 deaths in Canada in people under 85 during the same period were opioid-related. For people in their 20s and 30s, it was one in three or one in four, she said.
“This is an enormous contribution to cause of death for Canadians,” Gomes said.
The Manitoba Advocate for Children and Youth is holding a news conference Tuesday regarding the advocate’s concerns about youth addiction services in Manitoba. Details are not yet available.
— with files from the Canadian Press
katrina.clarke@freepress.mb.ca
Katrina Clarke
Investigative reporter
Katrina Clarke is an investigative reporter with the Winnipeg Free Press.