Richmond residents say injecting room review missing pages

Residents impacted by North Richmond’s injecting room have accused the government of culling information from a key report.

Labor and the Greens on Thursday blocked an opposition bid to prohibit safe ­injecting facilities operating near schools, childcare centres and community centres.

The attempt came after angry residents affected by the North Richmond injecting room questioned the completeness of a long-awaited ­review of the facility.

At a meeting between local stakeholders and project staff on Wednesday night, residents demanded more information around the review produced by John Ryan.

A 25-page report titled Key Findings was published this month following his five-year review of the facility.

Children walk past intoxicated people outside the Richmond injecting room.

On Thursday evening, opposition mental health spokeswoman Emma Kealy said Labor had voted “to embed in legislation that injecting rooms can operate next to schools and community centres across the state” and ignored evidence of “increased anti-social and dangerous drug-related behaviour surrounding the North Richmond MSIR”.

“Prohibiting injecting rooms operating next to schools, childcare centres and community centres would bring Victoria into line with NSW legislation, but importantly, is consistent with the Ryan report,” she said.

Ms Kealy said Labor still had an opportunity to “do the right thing” and bring Victoria’s legislation into line with world’s best-practice when the Bill went to the Legislative Council in May.

Richmond residents says pages are missing from an injecting room review. Picture: Jason Edwards

The Ryan report found 6000 overdoses had occurred at the site during the five-year trial period, with modelling predicting the facility prevented up to 63 deaths.

But residents say there must be more to the report. This is the second report on the facility; the first ran to almost 400 pages.

Project staff refused to confirm or deny the existence of further pages.

But the Herald Sun has been told people who contributed to the report have questioned why their work was not referenced in the 25-page document.

Numerous Freedom of ­Information requests have been lodged seeking additional pages of the report.

Premier Daniel Andrews confirmed on Thursday that the Ryan review has been released “in full” and was available to the public, but admitted he was unsure about its length.

“I don’t know whether it was 25 or 26 or 36 (pages) – I’m not entirely sure, I haven’t done a page count on it – but the final report has been made publicly available and we’re getting on and saving lives,” he said.