Calls for secondary safe injecting facility in Sydney as drug use spreads
A safe injecting room in the heart of Sydney has been credited with saving thousands of lives since it opened more than 20 years ago. Now, there are calls for a second safe injecting facility in the city's south-west, which accounts for the second highest number of fatal overdoses in New South Wales.
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00:00Seven years ago, Sarah's husband Lee died of a drug overdose.
00:10It was always a matter of when, not if, it was going to happen.
00:19I just never thought that he'd actually die.
00:22He was found in a car park in Campbelltown, 50 kilometres southwest of Sydney's CBD.
00:28I'd like to think that if there had been a safe injecting room in the southwest of Sydney
00:35that he would have chosen to use it.
00:40Sydney currently has only one safe injecting room, in King's Cross in the city.
00:45There is no other service that can boast the kind of evidence base that injecting facilities
00:49can boast for saving the lives of people who use drugs.
00:53Kev Dutardian says the opening of a similar facility in Sydney's suburbs is long overdue.
00:59We're seeing significant increases in the number of people who are losing their lives
01:03in western and southwestern Sydney.
01:06Research suggests safe injecting rooms do save lives, but there are questions about
01:10how effective this would be in reducing overdoses here in southwest Sydney.
01:17Chris Nguyen used and sold drugs for decades.
01:21He now works in a drug and alcohol support service from his church in Fairfield.
01:25He's not convinced a safe injecting room is the answer.
01:28It'll help most people, but not everybody.
01:31It doesn't solve the issue at all.
01:34He says the money would be better spent on cutting waiting times for treatment.
01:38If someone was reaching out to seek help, the door should be open.
01:43But if there's not enough funding, the door cannot open.
01:46Then there's the challenge of where a supervised injecting room would be located in Sydney's
01:50sprawling southwestern suburbs.
01:52If you set up a facility in, say, one place, like, say, Liverpool Hospital, you're not
01:58going to get people travelling far and wide to access that facility.
02:03Dr Robert Graham says a network of smaller facilities would be more effective.
02:08You could have the same impact over a much broader area.
02:11For Sarah, anything that could prevent another overdose death is a no-brainer.
02:16If there's a community problem, why not address it with a community solution?