Safe Injecting Room Richmond Covid

Furious residents living near melbourne s safe injecting room say roaming drug users are gathering en masse without face masks defecating in side streets and leaving used syringes outside homes.

Safe injecting room richmond covid.

North richmond safe injecting centre opens after mass overdose deaths in a small inner city suburb of melbourne drug use is rampant and flagrant. But the solution has caused division among locals. An outreach worker linked to a medically supervised safe injecting room in melbourne s inner east is among a group of people now charged with trafficking the drug heroin. North richmond has been the hub of victoria s heroin trade for two decades and a safe injecting room was recommended by the coroner after a spate of drug related deaths in the area.

The victorian government is trialling a medically supervised injecting room at the north richmond community health site in north richmond melbourne. With over 170 deaths caused by heroin overdoses in 2016 and a significant amount of those occurring in the streets of richmond and abbotsford alone the approval of a 6 month trial for a safe injecting room sir in richmond is a step closer to acknowledging a growing support for harm minimisation from drug use. The medically supervised safe injecting room s two year trial came to an end this week but an independent review finalised in june found the north richmond trial remains a work in progress. With the high numbers of victorians losing their lives to drug related overdoses the medically supervised injecting room msir is a safety first medical approach focused on harm reduction.

The service was established for an initial two year trial period which will be extended for a further three years based on the evidence gathered in the initial period.