Controversy casts cloud over injecting room trial
Despite being plagued by controversy since it opened last year, Victoria’s supervised injecting room has been hailed a success by the Andrews Government. But whether the facility is here to stay is still undecided.
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Victoria’s supervised injecting room has been plagued by problems since it opened in the middle of last year.
But more than halfway through a two-year trial, the state government has also hailed the successes of the controversial facility, which has managed more than 1200 heroin overdoses.
The prospect of an injecting room in North Richmond had been consistently rejected by Premier Daniel Andrews.
He changed his mind in late 2017 after the overdose deaths of 34 people in nearby streets, saying the government could no longer “stubbornly continue with a policy that’s just not working”.
A temporary injecting room opened in the North Richmond Community Health centre last year, with security cameras, lighting and improved fencing installed at Richmond West Primary School next door.
While addicts gradually moved inside the facility, brazen drug use continued on surrounding streets.
In April this year, the Herald Sun revealed a casual worker at the needle exchange in the same building had been caught on camera shooting up just 120m away in a driveway.
It soon emerged a second community health centre worker had also been shooting up in her car nearby, prompting a review of the service’s staff policies.
Locals were also confronted by a couple performing sex acts, a man threatening a woman with a weapon, and a drug-affected man stopping traffic near the school.
The alarming incidents prompted the Police Association to encourage the state government to consider moving the facility, with 80 per cent of officers believing crime in the Richmond area had increased since the injecting room opened.
But the government persisted with the trial and a bigger, stand-alone facility opened in July.
In its first year, the injecting room successfully managed 1231 overdoses and was used by 2941 people, with workers providing referrals to health and support services.
The new facility enabled staff to extend the opening hours from 7am to 9pm on weekdays and 8am to 7pm on weekends.
Additional police resources were sent to North Richmond, along with more outreach workers, extra security patrols, improved lighting and more regular street sweeps for used syringes.
Needle disposal boxes were also installed in nearby public housing flats.
But the government’s efforts to improve the operation of the facility have failed to placate some local residents.
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Former Opposition leader Matthew Guy had vowed to shut the injecting room within a week if he won last November’s state election.
But the defeated Coalition has since tempered its stance, and before Thursday’s arrests, Liberal leader Michael O’Brien said he supported the trial being completed.
It will finish on June 30 next year, and an independent review panel, including former top cop Ken Lay, will help to decide whether the service should become permanent.