Image Credit: Shutterstock
January 30, 2017 - 4:30 PM
KAMLOOPS - Police in Kamloops are working closely with Interior Health and community stakeholders to get a better sense of where proposed mobile supervised consumption units will set up.
Kamloops RCMP Insp. Sunny Parmar said during a coordinated enforcement task force meeting today, Jan. 30, the RCMP is waiting for location proposals from Interior Health on where the authority would like to see the mobile supervised consumption clinics.
"We’ll be meeting with Interior Health to get a better sense of locations and if they have any that are proposed," Parmar said. "They’re asking us for data with respect to what’s happening in certain areas and we can’t provide that until they give us locations as to what they’re proposing."
Parmar says once the locations have been proposed, the RCMP will look at how a mobile supervised consumption clinic would impact businesses and residents in the area.
No timeline for the mobile units, which would be a small bus or RV, has been introduced, but at a news conference earlier this month, B.C.'s Health Minister Terry Lake and Interior Health's chief medical health officer Dr. Trevor Corneill confirmed the health authority would be moving forward with an application for the sites to Health Canada.
Kamloops and Kelowna are experiencing the highest number of overdose deaths in Interior Health, which led to the application for two mobile safe consumption units in the cities.
If approved, the units can service multiple areas of Kamloops, where the highest-risk areas have been identified as downtown and on the North Shore.
Interior Health is expected to meet with Kamloops city council tomorrow to provide an update on the supervised consumption plan.
To contact a reporter for this story, email Ashley Legassic or call 250-319-7494 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.
We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above.
News from © iNFOnews, 2017