Richmond safe injecting room made permanent after late-night vote

Victoria’s first safe injecting room will become permanent in North Richmond after a protracted debate in the state’s upper house ended in a late-night vote on Thursday.

The facility is credited with saving an estimated 63 lives and safely managing more than 6300 overdoses since it opened as a trial almost five years ago, but its location next to a primary school has been a sore point for some residents and the state opposition.

The North Richmond safe injecting room.Credit: Eddie Jim

Labor’s bill to make the injecting room permanent passed unamended about 10pm on Thursday with support from the Greens, Legalise Cannabis, Animal Justice and the Liberal Democrats.

An independent report by John Ryan recommended the Lennox Street facility become permanent and found it had achieved its foremost objective of saving lives, but that it had not overcome broader amenity challenges from the pre-existing drug market.

“While there have been fewer overdoses requiring ambulance attendance in the area, public injecting and inappropriate discarding of needles and syringes remain a challenge,” the report said.

A small group of residents opposed to its location next to the Richmond West Primary School protested on the steps of the Victorian Parliament on Thursday and said they had not been listened to in their open letter to MPs.

Residents against the location of the safe injecting room protest on the steps of parliament on Thursday.Credit: Chris Hopkins

“It’s okay for the government to admit they have made a mistake,” the letter said. “All our community has ever wanted was to work with the government to find a solution that properly balanced the safety and wellbeing of residents and those who use supervised injecting facilities.”

Proponents argue the facility has to be where drug users are, and that residents were already exposed to injecting and overdoses in the hotspot before it opened. A state coroner recommended the trial go ahead in North Richmond after a spate of heroin-related deaths nearby.

A failed amendment brought by shadow health minister Georgie Crozier, the leader of the opposition in the upper house, would have forced the Andrews government to move the existing site at least 250 metres from the neighbouring Richmond West Primary School.

Amendments brought by the Greens and Liberal Democrats, which both separately addressed recommendations in the Ryan report, also failed.

The Greens proposed allowing children, pregnant women and those on court orders access to the safe injecting room — as was recommended by the Ryan report to minimise harm for the most vulnerable people in the community and minimise public injecting. The Andrews government rejected the recommendation outright.

Liberal Democrats MP David Limbrick sought to expand access to pharmacotherapy, such as hydromorphine, which was supported by the opposition and the Ryan report but failed to get majority support.

The independent Ryan report was critical of the state’s under-resourced pharmacotherapy system, the use of medication such as methadone to treat opioid addiction.

Across both private and public sectors, there were 14,804 pharmacotherapy patients in Victoria compared to 24,340 in NSW in 2021.

More than 700 people have commenced opioid treatment through the North Richmond facility and the spread of hepatitis C fell.

The room was visited almost 350,000 times between June 2018 and September 2022, by more than 6000 people.

Patricia Collocott resigned as chief executive of North Richmond Community Health, which runs the site, shortly after the release of the Ryan report.

The government is reopening the running of the facility up to tender in July with a preference for a hospital to be involved to expand wraparound services including mental healthcare.

Ken Lay’s report into a possible second safe injecting room, in Melbourne’s CBD, will be handed to the government later this month.

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