Kitchener CTS site closing despite injunction

Despite a court injunction, Kitchener’s supervised consumption site is shutting down. CTV’s Jeff Pickel explains why.

Although a Consumption Treatment Service (CTS) site in Kitchener can legally remain open, the location is closing its doors on Monday.

On Friday, a court ruled ten CTS locations that had been ordered to shut down by the Ontario government could remain open while the court reviewed the legality of the forced closures.

Although the decision was seen as a major win by some advocates, nine sites, including the Kitchener site ran by Sanguen Health Service, will still close.

“We have lost our provincial funding for the program, today’s the day our Health Canada exemption expires to legally operate, and we have lost our location,” Anne Phillips, Clinical Director with Sanguen Health Services, explained.

The site at 150 Duke Street had an exemption from Health Canada to operate. With the lease for the building ending on April 1, the organization was left in a bind: find a new location, new funding and obtain a new exemption.

Now that the Ontario government has pulled funding from the program, Sanguen Health Services said funding is a major obstacle.

“The question for all of us will be seeking that funding from wherever we can get it,” Philips said. “It is a health service, we hope to find [the funding] through the official means for health funding.”

The Waterloo Region Drug Action Team has sent a letter to the Region of Waterloo to consider providing emergency funding.

Sanguen Health Services said they are also looking for private donors.

“We hope that people would reach out. We’d be very interested to hear from any of the partners and any of the private funders,” said Phillips

New Sanguen Location Opening

According to Sanguen Health Centre they hope to open a new outreach centre in Downtown Kitchener by the end of the month.

The new location at 130 Victoria Street will offer all the services the Duke Street offered, except safe consumption.

“People will be able to access primary care, harm reduction, education, peer groups, nursing for wound care - these sites will still be accessible, but we won’t have supervised consumption.”

A program that allowed users to check drugs for unexpected lethal substances will also still be offered at the new location once it is established.