Victoria Government drops plans for a second safe injecting room

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Victorian premier Jacinta Allan has axed plans to set up a second safe injecting room in Melbourne. Instead, a new 36-million-dollar community health hub will be built in flinders street and there will be better access to overdose medication. But drug and alcohol advocates have slammed the backflip saying the decision will cost lives.

Transcript

00:00 A four year old promise dumped.

00:04 A second injecting service in the CBD is not our plan and it won't be proceeding.

00:10 The first recommendation from this expert report commissioned by the government is for

00:15 a small and discreet safe injecting room in the CBD.

00:19 But that's been ignored.

00:21 It will cost lives, there's absolutely no question it will cost lives.

00:24 This issue of the location has been a key sticking point.

00:29 We have been unable to find a location that strikes the right balance.

00:33 The CoHealth site near the Queen Victoria Market, the former Eurala building on Flinders

00:38 Street the government bought, and the Salvation Army site on Bourke Street were all explored

00:44 as potential sites for a second injecting room after the CBD was found to be the deadliest

00:50 area for heroin overdoses with 24 fatalities in 2022.

00:55 But the community backlash was too fierce.

00:59 I think it's cowardly.

01:00 I don't want to waste time on a continuation of a divisive debate within the CBD that only

01:08 serves to further stigmatise people.

01:12 CBD traders are celebrating the decision.

01:14 That's very welcoming news.

01:16 We have to do something for those people of course but not on the street.

01:19 It would be a catastrophe for all the business here.

01:22 A CBD injecting room would have been in addition to the one already operating in North Richmond

01:27 which has dealt with 6,000 overdoses, freeing up emergency workers and has saved 63 lives.

01:34 Instead, the government's announced a $95 million statewide action plan which includes

01:40 a new community health service in Flinders Street and a trial of hydromorphone, a powerful

01:46 drug that will be used to wean 60 people off heroin, 20 vending machines which will stock

01:52 naloxone, the overdose reversal medicine, and extra wraparound services that the Salvation

01:57 Army for people who use drugs.

02:00 We see people that are right on the brink of life and death every day.

02:04 This report by former Police Chief Commissioner Ken Lay was commissioned back in 2020 but

02:11 it sat on the government's desk for nearly a year.

02:14 Some frontline health workers say that's wasted precious time while drug users have died on

02:19 the streets.

02:20 We'll continue to see deaths of people who were overdosing in the streets when we could

02:25 have had a much more humane and effective way of saving their lives.

02:28 Today's backflip has seen four lost years.

02:32 The Premier says today's decision puts a line under a second safe injecting room ever being

02:37 built in Victoria.

02:38 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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