ID: HR19-637

Presenting author: Zoe Dodd

Presenting author biography:

Zoë Dodd is a co-founder and a program coordinator with the Toronto Community Hep C Program (TCHCP) offering community-based access to HepC treatment and support for people who use drugs. She is currently involved in the Moss Park Overdose Prevention Site and a member of the Toronto Overdose Prevention Society.

How to run a pop-up, unsanctioned Overdose Prevention Site

Zoe Dodd, Gillian Kolla, Kate Mason, Jen Ko, Leigh Chapman, Nicholas Boyce

Background: Opioid-related overdoses are at crisis levels in North America, with almost 4,000 people having died in Canada in 2017, and 72,000 in the United States in 2017. Government response has been slow and ineffectual in the face of this public health crisis.

Setting: In August 2017 in Toronto, Canada, no Supervised Consumption Sites (SCS) or Overdose Prevention Sites (OPS) were open when the Toronto Overdose Prevention Society (TOPS) opened an unsanctioned, pop-up OPS in response to a recent spike in overdose deaths and government inaction. Volunteers, using crowd funding to support operations, ran the OPS in tents, and later a trailer, in a downtown park, and supervised 9,062 injections and intervened in 251 overdoses in 11 months. TOPS members also assisted a government committee to develop a framework for approving and funding OPS; within months, 18 were established across the province. In May 2018 TOPS used that framework to successfully apply for funding and moved into a staffed, indoor space. Following the June 2018 election of a more conservative government which “paused” the OPS program and stopped the opening of additionally needed sites, TOPS members opened a second unsanctioned OPS in protest.

Learning objectives: In this session, participants will learn from the experience of TOPS members of running two separate OPS, in distinct areas of the city with different populations, local environments, and needs. Strategies for advocacy under both ‘friendly’ and ‘unfriendly’ governments will be discussed.

Concrete learning objectives are:

1) Learn about the physical equipment necessary to open an OPS
2) Learn about choosing the optimal environment to set up an OPS
3) Learn strategies for engaging with police, government officials and media

Outcomes: Participants will understand the main infrastructure and human resource requirements to open an OPS, and the public relations components to consider.