TORONTO — Research using Vancouver's Insite as a case study is making a dollars-and-cents argument in favour of opening five supervised-injection sites across Ontario.
Ahmed Bayoumi, a medical researcher at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, says three such facilities in that city and two in Ottawa would make financial sense given the increasing effectiveness of hepatitis C treatment.
Bayoumi's research suggests there's an 86-per-cent chance that an Insite-type clinic in Toronto would be cost effective, and a 90-per-cent chance in Ottawa.
The study says those numbers could be even higher given they are based on the Ontario sites being located in freestanding clinics, similar to Insite, as opposed to incorporating the services into existing health facilities.
Bayoumi says that unlike in Vancouver, multiple facilities would be more appropriate in Ontario because populations of drug users aren't as concentrated as in B.C.'s Lower Mainland.
Insite is currently North America's only safe-injection site, where addicts shoot up under the watchful eyes of a nurse to prevent overdoses.
