How you can help with the DTES overdose-prevention sites

By Mathew Kagis

I am a volunteer with the OPS (Overdose Prevention Society). One day a week, I help staff at "Area 62", the safe-use site (injection and smoking) at the DTES Market. The site was initially set up by Sarah Blyth as a response to the fentanyl crisis. It's a Band-Aid, and we need more of them.

The volunteers at Area 62 are burning out. The site is seeing 500 clients per day. That's more than double what Insite sees in a day. The volunteers and staff at Area 62 are experiencing the same burnout, trauma, and exhaustion that paramedics, fire-and-rescue crews, and emergency nurses and doctors grapple with.

Yet for those at Area 62, there is limited access to counselling, precious few paid sick days, and no extra funding to expand support. It feels like there's no relief. The same people are seeing more and more clients every day; we reverse overdoses every day; the sound of ambulance sirens is our constant companion.

What's needed? While larger policy debates about prescription heroin and more detox beds work their way through political processes (where lawmakers try not to offend the most socially conservative of their constituents) and while funding is promised and works its way through endless committees, what is needed right now is more Area 62s, more volunteers, and more support for those volunteers.

If you are reading this and thinking that “someone should do something”, I say to you now: you are someone. You can donate; you can get free Naloxone training and volunteer; you can donate money; you can donate time; you can be part of saving lives.

What does a typical day of being a volunteer entail? Keeping simple records of client visits. Stocking supplies (needles, tin foil, ties, alcohol swabs, etcetera). Cleaning tables used by the clients (which, yes, can include cleaning blood and bodily fluids). Watching over clients who appear to be losing consciousness or nodding off. Talking to people; getting clients a glass of juice or water. And, of course, always the potential of having to reverse an overdose.

Managing these scenes involves basic first aid: breathing for the client, injecting them with Naloxone, calling 911, monitoring, and passing patients over to fire and rescue or paramedics with as much information as possible. It's often a tense, high-burnout job. We lose volunteers all the time. Fewer & fewer people are stepping up to take their places. Those who are left are having to fill the gap.

We are the Band-Aid. We are frayed, overused, dirty, and we need you. We need more Band-Aids, and that will only happen if someone like you decides to do something. Our province needs to immediately release the federal funding they received to staff and support safe-use sites. Meanwhile, you need to help us save lives.

Note: There have been zero deaths at Area 62. We have not lost a single client. Not even the mouse.

Go here to get in touch with the OPS.

Go here to donate to the OPS.

Go here to get a Naloxone kit: