Daily London
Yarra City Council yesterday voted to withdraw its long-term support for the North Richmond Medically Supervised Injection Room (MSIR).
Yarra Mayor Stephen Jolly said the council supports the concept of supervised injection services, but believes the facility is in “the worst possible place”.
“To put a supervised injecting facility next to a primary school, next to a public housing estate, is madness,” Jolly told 3AW.
“It’s almost like it was set up to fail.”
The facility has long attracted criticism for its location next to a primary school.
In 2021, Richmond West Primary School was placed into lockdown after a man was found dead after suffering a drug overdose outside the school.
In its eight years of operation, the North Richmond safe injecting room has saved dozens of lives and safely managed thousands of overdoses, according to data from the Department of Health.
But Jolly accused the state government of lying about its plans to expand safe injecting facilities across the state.
“They said there would be several, so that one suburb, in this instance North Richmond, wouldn’t have to take the heat for the whole of Victoria,” he said.
“They lied about all of that. Now 10 years on, we’ve only got one.
”We’re carrying the load for the whole state and it’s not fair.”
Premier Jacinta Allan remained steadfast in her stance to continue operating the service from North Richmond.
“We have no intention to change the operation of the medically supervised safe injecting facility that is located in Richmond because it is saving lives,” Allan said.
“There is data that shows the significant number of deaths that have been prevented because of the important access that people with serious drug addiction have to this lifesaving service.”
But Jolly argued the service does not support users in the aftermath of drug injection.
“There’s not enough counselling. There’s no rehab, there’s no detox,” he said.
“If you had better support services, people wouldn’t just be roaming around, high, in North Richmond, terrorising and scaring the locals.
They’d actually be helped. None of that is happening.
“It’s just a dumping ground for drug users.”
The safe injecting room’s chief executive, Simone Heald, said the council’s backflip showed a “fundamental misunderstanding” of what the community needs.
“The Medically Supervised Injecting Room operates where Melbourne’s drug market has existed for decades,” the North Richmond Community Health chief executive said.
”With more than half a million visits and more than 11,000 overdoses managed without a single death, it has established itself as one of the world’s busiest and most effective supervised injecting facilities.”
