A health-based response to drug harms in the CBD

We have a long history of supporting the health of people in the city and see there is a need for a CBD-based community health service offering a range of primary health, allied health, social support and alcohol and drug responses, which also includes a supervised injecting service to prevent overdoses.

A comprehensive CBD health service that offers a range of health care, homelessness and other social supports, alongside an overdose prevention service, would help people access the health and care that they need, saving countless lives.

The decision to establish a CBD supervised injecting service, and the location, is one for the State Government, and we are strongly supportive.

Our health centre at 53 Victoria St was originally identified as the preferred site by the State Government, so we have provided advice about the need for a comprehensive CBD-based community health service. However the decision to establish a second service in the CBD, and who will operate it, is one for the state government.

Supervised injecting services have become a highly politicised issue, but if we take out the politics the reality is that they save lives, move drug use off the streets and connect people to care and treatment.

People are overdosing on our city streets, ambulance callouts to overdose are rising and the bottom line is we need more health-based responses to what is, at its core, a health issue.

Everyone in the community wants the same thing, and that is to find a better way to respond to public drug use that allows us to save lives, connect people with support and reduce the impact of public drug use on the broader community.