Insite Is Turning 20

published on September 15, 2023 by Michelle Gamage in The Tyee

Over the last two decades, Insite, located in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, has had people walk through its doors 4.6 million times, and welcomed people into its supervised injection room three million times, said Dr. Mark Lysyshyn, deputy chief medical health officer of Vancouver Coastal Health.

Insite held an early morning media scrum on Thursday to talk about the supervised consumption site’s impact on the community. Later in the day the community hosted a street party in the DTES in the early afternoon to celebrate.

Insite has reversed 11,856 overdoses and referred 71,103 patients to treatment programs, like Onsite, located upstairs to the overdose prevention site, or other programs around the Lower Mainland, Lysyshyn said.

The site opened its doors on Sept. 21, 2003, in an effort to reduce the spread of blood-borne pathogens like HIV and hepatitis C, said Susan Alexman, director of programs at PHS. “Unfortunately we’ve now moved into a toxic fentanyl crisis and we’re working really hard to ensure people are not dying from this crisis as well.”…