Saade Melki woke up in the safe injecting room in North Richmond with an oxygen mask over his face. For years he had struggled to get clean. The safe injecting room had been a sanctuary: “extremely non-judgmental, you walk in there they remember your name”.
That 2020 overdose was a fright and a wake-up call. The safe injecting centre diverted Melki into a trial of Buvidal, a substitute for opioids that he injects every six weeks. Melki – who calls it a “miracle drug” – became part of the Keep Our City Alive campaign for a safe injecting room in the CBD.
Saade Melki is shocked the second injecting room is not going ahead.Credit: Joe Armao
He was shocked to learn on Tuesday the Victorian government had abandoned its four-year-old promise to open a second facility.
Mental Health Minister Ingrid Stitt instead announced a $95.11 million “statewide action plan” with health services at two previously mooted city sites for injecting rooms.
But the second safe injecting room would not proceed, the government said, because it had been unable to identify a suitable site that balanced the needs of people who use drugs with those of the broader CBD community.
“It’s not the right decision – people are still going to be dying in alleyways,” says Melki, who manages a scaffolding yard, intends to recommence post-graduate study next year and is planning to start a family.
“If there is no safe injecting room, there is going to be no one on hand to give them oxygen and naloxone [a medication to restore breathing after an overdose]. People that use drugs in the safe injecting room get diverted into programs, like I did.”
A report by former police commissioner Ken Lay – finally released on Tuesday – recommended a second, CBD-based safe injecting room. Lay identified five “high harm zones” around the city that received high numbers of heroin-related ambulance callouts, including Flinders and Elizabeth streets and Swanston and Bourke streets.
But any site suggested for a safe injecting room over the past couple of years met fierce resistance from some traders and residents, who worried it would create a honeypot effect.
Paul Guerra, the head of the Victorian Chamber of Commerce, said the city had been beset by drug users.
“The businesses in the CBD did not want an injection room next door to them,” he said.
“The provision of health services in a couple of locations across the CBD will support those in the community that are vulnerable.”
The police association said it had long argued that it would be unwise to replicate the North Richmond safe injecting room in the CBD, given the problems that had plagued it since it opened in 2018.
“This is a pragmatic decision and one that is in the interests of a vast majority of residents, traders and visitors to the city,” association secretary Wayne Gatt said.
The Salvation Army’s Brendan Nottle outside 244 Flinders Street.Credit: Justin McManus
For Salvation Army commanding officer Brendan Nottle, the government’s announcement on Tuesday was bittersweet.
A health hub will be established at 244 Flinders Street – the building originally purchased for an injecting room and wraparound services – in 2026. There will also be medical, nursing and mental health support services at the Salvation Army centre at 69 Bourke Street, which was one of several injecting room sites under consideration by the government.
“We’ve been advocating hard for an injecting room with wraparound services, for that very reason that people need a safe place,” Nottle said.
“But I’m certainly positive too, and appreciative of the services that have been provided through these new initiatives.”
Jill Mellon-RobertsonCredit: Joe Armao
Jill Mellon-Robertson, a city resident whose son Jahn died from a drug overdose in 2015, wept when she learned the new safe injecting room would not proceed.
She believes her son, who had schizophrenia and died alone at home, would have used a safe injecting room had there been one when he was alive.
“I think he would have felt those people were here to support him, rather than criticise and condemn him, which quite often he felt.”
Mellon-Robertson, who was part of the Keep Our City Alive campaign, questioned who the government was listening to when Lay, health professionals and city church leaders had all called for a safe injecting room in the CBD.
“This decision is based on what? I don’t think it’s on the preservation of life. I think it’s perhaps based on people’s profits and businesses and I think that’s terribly sad.”
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