North Richmond Community Health: New mums request transfer away from injecting room

Mothers of newborns are asking to be transferred away from a health centre that provides critical maternal support because it’s near the injecting room.

There have been 132 mums request a move from North Richmond Community Health between March 2018 and July 2022.

Mums of newborns are asking to be transferred to different health centres instead of using critical maternal support next to the North Richmond injecting room.

A damning report by the City of Yarra obtained under Freedom of Information laws reveals 65 per cent of mothers who transferred from North Richmond Community Health (NRCH) did so because of fears about the trouble-plagued facility.

Another 5 per cent of the 132 women who requested to move between March 2018 and July 2022 listed violence in the area as why they asked to leave.

The only other reasons women provided were ‘other’ or declining to say.

The health centre is next to the injecting room.

It comes just days after it was reported that Victoria’s second injecting room could be housed at the Salvation Army building on Bourke St, 200m from state parliament.

NRCH provides crucial medical advice including maternal child health nursing and general practice.

The council’s research also revealed residents were fearful of the presence of drug users, the visibility of criminal behaviour and needles strewn in public places.

One woman, who undertook the survey, said Butler Street Park, which is located metres from the controversial facility, was “terrifying” to walk past in broad daylight amid drug users openly injecting.

“It’s only used by drug dealers and users. It’s always filthy even after the council cleans it up, it only takes a short while until it is littered with drug paraphernalia again,” the woman said.

Another woman said Lennox St had become a “dangerous place”.

“Drug users walk down the street and step out onto the road high on drugs,” she said.

Other women said drug users were “unpredictable”, “scary” and noted that men were “catcalling” them.

“They comment on women and to women who walk by. When I do school pick up, their harassment makes me feel uncomfortable,” one woman said.

Between January 2020 to June 2022, the council received 66 community safety requests that related specifically to the precinct around the injecting room.

The top three complaints included drug injecting and anti-social behaviour, which had 39 reports each and the injecting room with 34.

The report also featured the council’s annual customer satisfaction survey, with residents asked to rate how safe they feel on a scale of 0 (very unsafe) to 10 (very safe).

In 2022, respondents scored a 5.7 for Richmond at night and an 8 for Yarra during the day.

Opposition mental health spokeswoman Emma Kealy said the damning evidence proved the injecting room is causing enormous harm to the safety and amenity of the North Richmond community.

“The safety of women and their newborns have been cruelly sacrificed by Labor, and the Premier still refuses to admit the injecting room should never have been built between a maternal child health centre and a primary school,” Ms Kealy said.

“Labor must stop punishing the residents of Richmond who simply want to access their local community and maternal health care safely and without risk of abuse, violence and the dangerous drug-associated behaviour caused by Labor’s injecting room.”

A state government spokeswoman said everyone had the right to feel safe in their community.

“That’s why outreach teams have been expanded and Victoria Police is a highly visible presence in the North Richmond area, with regular proactive patrols and ongoing enforcement activity,” the spokeswoman said.

“The City of Yarra has grappled with drug use and anti-social behaviour, including public injecting and incorrectly disposed of syringes, for decades – that’s why the medically supervised injecting room was placed in the North Richmond location.”

“It has safely managed more than 6000 overdoses and saved at least 63 lives – taking pressure off local hospitals, reduced ambulance call outs and led to a decrease in public injecting.”