Controversial second injecting room axed
The Victoria government has scrapped plans for a second supervised drug injecting room in the centre of Melbourne.
Premier Jacinta Allan said the government had been unable to find a location in the CBD and was unwilling to protract the process anymore.
A second supervised injecting room would have complemented an existing facility in Richmond.
Mental Health Minister Ingrid Stitt said the government would not build a new injecting room in the CBD because it could not find a site that met the needs of both drug users and the broader community.
The North Richmond injecting room opened in July 2019, and a second room had been tipped for Flinders Street.
In place of a second room, the government on Tuesday announced a $95m statewide drug harm action plan; the plan included a community health hub on Flinders Street with wraparound services, and a two-year hydromorphone trial involving 60 drug users.
Hydromorphone is an opioid and the trial participants would be selected among those who had been resistant to other diversionary treatments.
Ms Allan repeatedly told a sizeable press conference at parliament that drug users and their families did not deserve to be stigmatised for health issues.
In 2022, 230 people died of a heroin overdose across Victoria, Ms Allan said.
“People living and struggling with addiction deserve the very best care and the best chance,” she said.
Ms Allan thanked former police officer Ken Lay, who prepared a 119-page report for the government, looking at a second injecting room, and recommended a second site.
Mr Lay identified 50 potential sites for an additional injecting room, which was whittled to a short-list of three.
One of those three, 244 Flinders Street, would now become the wraparound health hub with mental health, social and broader health supports.
The report is dated May 31, 2023, but was released by the government Tuesday, evidently 328 days since it was submitted.
A four to six-booth discreet injecting service with wraparound services should be considered in or near an area of identified drug use, Mr Lay found.
This week the government has rejected that recommendation, but accepted Mr Lay’s further eight recommendations.
The further recommendations include more fulsome inter-agency work, more outreach services, making hydromorphone and other pharmacotherapy drugs more available, and better monitoring of the support sector and drug injectors.
Heroin related harm in the City of Melbourne had returned to pre-covid levels and overdoses were above pre-pandemic levels, Mr Lay found.
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