The lone supervised consumption sites (SCS) in Calgary and Lethbridge will close at the end of June, the provincial government announced on Friday.

Calgary’s site for drug users was the first of its kind to open in Alberta in 2017, and has been lauded by advocates as providing a life-saving service, but also targeted with criticism from people who blame it for public drug use and calls to police in its vicinity.

As the UCP government shifted its addiction services from a focus on harm reduction to more recovery-oriented care, the province first announced it planned to close Calgary’s SCS the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre nearly five years ago. In December, the Alberta’s Mental Health and Addiction ministry renewed its promise to shutter the site.

In place of the Chumir’s SCS, the province will offer rapid access addiction medicine services in Calgary to improve same-day access to addiction counselling and case management. 

“I don’t want to keep people in this cycle of addiction. I want to get them into recovery as quickly as we can,” said Rick Wilson, Alberta’s minister of mental health and addiction.

The province also plans to offer more on-site intake support at the Chumir provided by a registered nurse, increased beds and intake hours at the Renfrew Recovery Centre, and around-the-clock outreach recovery response teams in downtown Calgary responding to overdoses and connecting people to treatment and medical care.

Supervised consumption sites offer a place for people to use pre-obtained drugs, while being monitored by staff in a hygienic environment. The sites also connects clients to recovery and treatment services, and responds to overdoses, including through administering oxygen or naloxone.

The Chumir SCS also provided education on drug poisoning prevention and other harm reduction subjects, and training for how to respond to overdoses including on using naloxone kits.

In the last two years, the Alberta government has closed the overdose prevention site in Red Deer, as well as the SCS at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton.

Two additional sites providing the service remain in Edmonton, as well as one in Grande Prairie, all of which Wilson said the province plans to leave open for now.

More to come