Guelph CTS site says number of users declining as closure looms

Staff at the Guelph consumption and treatment services (CTS) site say many people who use its services have already stopped going following the Ford government's announcement that it is among 10 locations closing this year.

The Guelph Community Health Centre said, since 2018, they've had over 41,000 visits, connected 1,000 people to primary care providers, sent roughly 44 people every month to addiction treatment and reversed over 300 overdoses.

"What it means is people have established relationships with the staff at the site so they know and trust the people working there," said Melissa Kwiatkowski, the CEO of the Guelph Community Health Centre.

But since the Ford government's announcement, 25 per cent of their clients have stopped going, they say.

"We've seen people start to pull away and there's been a lot of confusion about whether our services are still available," Kwiatkowski explained.

The Kitchener CTS site said they are seeing the same thing – that people using the service feel abandoned.

Kwiatkowski said that’s not surprising considering the government made the decision to remove a vital service.

"People start to pull away," she said. "They're not feeling supported and they also want to have some control over the situation."

Harm reduction professionals are also concerned for those who are no longer using substances safely.

"Our medical teams have access to oxygen and naloxone and all of those pieces that really support people through that," said Kwiatkowski.

Last week, outreach workers from the Kitchener CTS site were at Kitchener City Hall teaching people what to do in case they witness an overdose. The worry is that, without CTS sites, overdoses will happen more often on the street. It's a concern shared in Guelph too.

"Decades of evidence and research that's out there shows communities that don't have supervised consumption sites have higher rates of ER visits, higher mortality rates,"Kwiatkowski said.

The Guelph and Kitchener CTS sites are set to close in March 2025.