By: Pam Wright, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Chatham Voice
A multi-pronged motion by North Kent Coun. Rhonda Jubenville that includes examining how harm-reduction supply kits are distributed locally has been referred to the Chatham-Kent board of health.
Brought forward at the Feb. 9 council meeting, the motion included possibly halting the delivery of harm-reduction supplies to residents at Pathways on Park transitional housing. Instead, after much discussion, council voted to send the motion to the board of health for examination.
Several deputations, as well as a presentation from C-K Medical Officer of Health Dr. Shanker Nesathurai, made the case that providing harm-reduction supplies helps save lives and is part of Ontario’s public health response.
According to Nesathurai, it’s part of a medical officer of health’s job to “faithfully execute” regulations and standards requiring public health to acquire and distribute harm-reduction supplies.
Deviating from the province’s Health and Promotion Act isn’t part of that mandate, the physician told council.
“Receiving public health services is the same as receiving fire services or ambulance services,” Nesathurai said. “I think that anything that would impede the equal access to vital life-saving public health services is not consistent with the Health Protection and Promotion Act.
“Medicine is about saying the truth and saying uncomfortable things,” he said, adding the board of health is required to deliver services to all people. “It’s not within the purview of myself or the board of health to restrict those supplies, because that’s what the provincial rules require.”
As part of his presentation, Nesathurai unveiled the contents of a typical harm-reduction kit. It included clean needles, a cooker, and a tourniquet.
“The reason I show this to you is that we’re not endorsing the underlying conduct,” he said. “What we want people to do is for them to live one more day.”
Nesathurai stressed that giving out kits to addicts serves a broader purpose that includes stopping the spread of blood-borne illness such as Hepatitis C or HIV, to non-drug users such as family members. In the last 10 years, 500 people have contracted Hepatitis C in Chatham-Kent.
“The fact is that some of them were using drugs,” the doctor said, but added others got the disease from their sexual partners.
“When we take away harm reduction supplies, we’re not only affecting the people who are currently using drugs – and those people aren’t all homeless – we’re also affecting their sexual partners. We’re taking away from them, something medicine can do to prevent them from getting sick.”
That includes babies in utero, he explained.
While holding up a condom, which public health distributes for free, Nesathurai stated that handing out condoms doesn’t enable people to have sex, it simply prevents pregnancy and the spread of disease.
Council also heard that contracting agencies to distribute harm reduction supplies, such as Reach Out Chatham-Kent (R.O.C.K.) Missions does at Pathways on Park, is common for Ontario’s health units. As part of the local public health response, harm reduction kits can also be obtained by calling public health through its Positive Pathways service which delivers right to the user’s door.
Pharmacies and other health-care institutions also distribute kits, council learned, and some deliver.
C-K board of health chair and Chatham Coun. Brock McGregor said the benefits of harm reduction are evidence based.
“We’ve had those conversations around the table many, many times,” McGregor said, noting the board is glad to again examine the harm-reduction issue.
He added the public health approach is evidence-based, not reliant on one “anecdotal story” or comments on social media.”
In her comments prior to the vote, Jubenville said she wasn’t trying to get rid of harm-reduction supplies altogether.
“I just want to be clear, because I think there are some misconceptions, that this motion does not restrict or remove access to those who are living at Pathways on Park to harm-reduction supplies,” Jubenville told council. “This motion merely asks for the cessation of delivery of said supplies to Pathways on Park, which is a drug-free municipal housing complex.”
Jubenville said she supports the C-K Drug Strategy and some aspects of the harm-reduction pillar, but doesn’t believe that “having an overabundance” of supplies like “needles and pipes” helps addicted people move towards recovery.
