ottawa health board warned of 'challenging summer' ahead with downtown drug consumption sites set to close
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ottawa's medical officer of health, dr. trevor arnason, says his biggest concern about the impact of closing supervised drug consumption sites in ottawa "is that paramedic calls are going to go up and emergency department visits may go up fairly quickly, based on what we have seen in other jurisdictions."
julie oliver
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postmedia
ottawa’s medical officer of health is warning that it is going to be a “challenging summer” in ottawa with the closure of two downtown supervised drug consumption sites just as busy tourist season moves into full swing.
dr. trevor arnason told the city’s board of health he was concerned about the impact of the closures of ottawa’s remaining two supervised consumption sites on individuals, on the health and emergency systems and on the city.
“the concern for me is that we are coming up to the summer months where we see more people out in the community and in those areas we are likely to see more individuals looking for services they can’t get,” arnason said.
“my biggest concern is that paramedic calls are going to go up and emergency department visits may go up fairly quickly, based on what we have seen in other jurisdictions. i think we as a community are going to experience concerning levels of requests for paramedic calls and other things.”
in march, the ontario government announced it would withdraw funding for the remaining supervised consumption sites in the province as of june 13. in ottawa, that will mean the closure of supervised consumption sites in sandy hill, at the sandy hill community health centre, and in lowertown at a site run by ottawa inner city health. those two sites average about 5,500 visits a month.
a file photo of the sandy hill community health centre. a supervised drug consumption sites there and another in lowertown run by ottawa inner city health combined to for an average average of about 5,500 visits a month.
wayne cuddinton
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postmedia
in 2025, the province withdrew funding for two other ottawa sites: one at the somerset west community health centre and one run by ottawa public health on clarence street in the byward market.
there has been a rise in public drug use and reports of more emergency calls and overdoses in the area around somerset west community health centre since that supervised consumption site closed.
the province has shifted its focus to homelessness and addiction recovery (hart) hubs with the aim of providing treatment and services. but arnason, in an earlier memo to the ottawa board of health, said communities were “strongest and safest” when services worked together across the full continuum of care. that includes prevention, outreach, supportive housing and harm reduction, such as supervised consumption sites and other services.
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ottawa has two hart hubs, with one connected with the somerset west community health centre and another in bell’s corners, connected with the pinecrest-queensway community health centre.
arnason said the province’s investment in hart hubs was a positive step, but a public health approach “requires a full continuum of interventions across the spectrum of substance use, including treatment that encompasses harm reduction approaches, peer engagement and prevention tailored to meet people where they are.”
arnason also told the board of health that the location of the city’s new hart hubs made them largely inaccessible to many of the people who regularly used services in lowertown and sandy hill. ottawa public health and other organizations will increase community outreach, but he anticipated the funding withdrawal may increase unmonitored substance use, overdoses and related harms in the community as well as putting extra pressure on emergency services, hospitals and community health resources.
brett bauer, who is a member of the city’s board of health, cited a recent study from the canadian drug policy coalition that showed a sharp increase in emergency service calls and emergency department visits after the first round of supervised consumption site closures in ontario, including in ottawa.
bauer called that research a “quite concerning context as we move forward into the summer.”
alta vista coun. mary carr raised concern about added pressure on health systems at a time when there were already long waits in hospital emergency departments and high pressure on paramedics.
arnason said hospitals in the city were working closely with oph and others through the overdose prevention and response task force to understand and help mitigate the impact of the closures.
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“they are concerned.”
he said much of the province’s planning around closure of the supervised consumption sites relied on the assumption that people could be referred to the nearest hart hubs. the challenge, he said, is the distance to the hart hubs from the area where services have long existed.
“as we build more systems for people to be directed to those sites, i think it will improve, but i think the concern right now is that we are going to have a number of people, predominantly in the area where the sites are closing, that aren’t really sure where to go and are going to have a gap in service,” he said.
arnason also said there were concerns that the closures would take away a key tool for understanding what was in the drug supply in the city. supervised consumption services have checked drugs to see what is in them, but they can no longer do that. ottawa, he said, is in discussions with health canada and a researcher in alberta who has started looking at wastewater monitoring as a way to understand the drug supply. that work, he said, “is very much at the research stage.”
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