ID: HR19-537

Presenting author: Kasey Elmore

Presenting author biography:

Kasey Elmore is the Operations Manager of Australia’s second Medically Supervised Injecting Room. She has worked in the harm reduction sector in Melbourne for more than 12 years, predominately responding to overdoses in a community setting. She is proud to be part of a global community committed to harm reduction.

An impractical guide to opening a Drug Consumption Room (DCR) - The new kid on the block

Kasey Elmore, Nico Clark, Sarah Hiley, David Pemberton

In late October 2017, after years of campaigning, the Victorian state government announced that Australia’s second DCR would open at North Richmond Community Health, by mid-2018. Developing, designing and implementing the DCR has posed a variety of issues which required practical solutions in an incredibly short time frame.

North Richmond is a culturally diverse, inner city suburb of Melbourne, Australia. The area has become more gentrified over the years but also houses the largest public housing estate in the southern hemisphere. The area attracts many visitors and is known for its restaurants and discounted shopping. It is also home to Melbourne’s largest drug street market. Public injecting, inappropriately discarded injecting equipment, high rates of hepatitis C, rising HIV rates and heroin overdoses started to impact the community.

After years of campaigning, it was a very welcomed but unexpected announcement of the State Government of Victoria to support a trial of a Medically Supervised Injecting Room in Melbourne. Legislation states that this could only happen at North Richmond Community Health (NRCH). NRCH has been providing health care to members of the community for over 20 years.
Given the tight time frame in which to open, there was an incredible amount of work to do. How do we integrate a program of this magnitude within an existing health care centre? How will this affect the school next door? What do other DCRs look like? How many staff will we need? Do we have enough funding? What policies, procedures and protocols will we need? How do we actually do this?

After months of hard work we opened our doors on June 30th 2018. We could not have achieved this without the assistance and support of many DCRs from around the world. Start planning your service now.