How injecting rooms will save lives in Richmond and Abbotsford

WITH so many drug addicts dying on our streets, the government’s refusal to trial safe injecting rooms is indefensible, writes Judy Ryan.

IMAGINE walking along a street near your home and hearing a bloodcurdling wail. You run to the source and find a young woman collapsed and unconscious on the footpath. Her hysterical partner is beside her. You’re shocked and shaking but manage to dial 000.

When the ambulance and MICA paramedics arrive, the woman is dead. It’s 3.30pm. You’re near the local primary school and kids stare as they head home.

But this scene is well known to them: it’s another fatal overdose on their streets.

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I was recently involved in just this kind of tragedy in Victoria St, North Richmond. I am still traumatised by it. For local residents, scenes like this are constant. Ambulance sirens are the soundtrack of our lives. This is Victoria’s “deadly heroin neighbourhood”. The woman who died came from regional Victoria and it’s a fact that nearly 70 per cent of people who die from heroin overdoses in North Richmond come from outside our neighbourhood. They travel from your city, your town, your suburb, on the extensive train, tram and bus network that makes our area such a heroin-dealing hotspot.

Residents across North Richmond and Abbotsford have had enough. We have seen the failed attempts over many years to put things right. The “Tough on Crime” mantra doesn’t work. People think it might get better but it just gets worse.

We don’t want this misery, suffering and death on our streets. We want our neighbourhood to be known for its streetscapes, dynamic cultures and the lovely heart of its residents. Above all we want a humane, respectful and sustainable solution to the illicit drugs crisis.

Syringes litter the ground in Richmond.

Jacqui Hawkins and Audrey Jamieson may not be familiar names to you but in our neck of the woods those women have rock-star status. They are two of Victoria’s coroners.

Jacqui Hawkins visited our neighbourhood and witnessed “confronting” injecting drug use. The experience had “a profound influence” on her. In February, she recommended that the Victorian Government “take the necessary steps to establish a safe injecting facility trial in North Richmond”.

In May, Audrey Jamieson also supported the trial of a safe injecting centre, highlighting that a centre would also “lessen the traumatic impact of overdose and death on local residents”.

Those coronial findings were based on evidence and exhaustive investigation into all alternatives. They support the position of civilised societies: that where lives at risk can be saved, they must be saved.

The response from the Andrews Government to the two coroners’ recommendations was that “there is no plan to introduce a safe injecting facility in Victoria”. Compare that with the government’s response to the coroner’s recommendations for improvements to Victoria’s pool safety regulations. Minister Richard Wynne said: “You can’t have a situation in which, over 15 years, 26 young people have drowned. It’s just not acceptable. We will act on the coroner’s recommendations.”

In Wynne’s electorate of Richmond, there were 34 fatal heroin overdoses in 2015 alone. So is his message that heroin-related deaths are somehow “acceptable”?

Locals don’t stigmatise and call people who use drugs “junkies”. We know these people. We talk to them. We hear about their lives, how unexpected life events have quickly taken them down an unexpected path. They are professionals, tradies, young people from supportive families. They want an opportunity to change their lives. they say: “Who would choose to live like this?”

Like us, they want a medically supervised injecting centre, known as an MSIC.

For decades, Victorian governments have led the world in introducing harm-reduction measures that have saved lives: compulsory seatbelts, 120 hours of driving experience for L-platers and restricted engine capacity, passenger numbers and zero blood alcohol content for P-platers.

Richmond MP Richard Wynne must act for his seat. Picture: Chris Eastman

International evidence gathered from 90 MSICs over three decades demonstrates that these facilities save lives: people are resuscitated immediately in the event of an overdose — not one person has died in an MSIC from a drug overdose; they offer rehabilitation: health professionals provide information and arrange appointments with diverse services; they improve amenity: shifting drug injecting to a clinic removes syringes and overdoses from the streets; they are economical: the Sydney MSIC is funded through the confiscated proceeds of crime.

By saying “no” to a trial, the state government continues to push a massive burden on to untrained residents and an already overburdened ambulance service.

Establishing a trial MSIC in North Richmond is a “no-brainer”. Paramedics, emergency hospital staff, doctors, lawyers, grieving families and many in the media support a trial. Importantly, data from the Sydney MSIC shows that the lives of other community members will be improved due to an 80 per cent reduction in ambulance calls to overdoses, freeing paramedics to respond to other medical emergencies.

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Premier Daniel Andrews and Coalition leader Matthew Guy’s mean-spirited opposition to a trial MSIC has no place in a humane 21st-century community.

The parliament is debating “Dying with Dignity”. What about legislating for an MSIC so people can be Living with Dignity?

There is not a moment to waste. Victorian lives are at stake.

One day your family may be very grateful that an MSIC was established.

Judy Ryan is secretary of the Residents for Victoria Street Drug Solutions