Ottawa's 4th supervised injection site opens in Chinatown

Ottawa's fourth supervised drug injection site has openedin Chinatown.

The Somerset West Community Health Centre announced Wednesday morning it had opened a temporary injection site in its EcclesStreet building.

The four-station injection site will be open and staffed from9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays.

A six-station permanent injection area is under construction in the same building. There is no target date for it to open.

The health centre got approval from Health Canada in December to open a supervised injection site, and got approval to start building it last week, it said in the news release.

"The lack of a safe space to inject drugs inSomerset Ward has resulted in a tragic increase in opioid overdose incidents, deaths and community trauma experienced by residents and our clients," it said in a news release.

3 other sites in ByWardMarket

According to a 2016 Ottawa Public Health report.the wardhadthe second-highest rateof average annual emergency room visits related to unintentional drug overdoses between 2013 and 2015.

Ottawa'sthree other supervised injection sites are in the ByWard Market area, with the first on Clarence Streetopening its doors in September 2017.

Staff are on hand at the sites in case clients experience an overdose. They also provide support services.

Ottawa now has the same number of operating supervised injection sites as Toronto, Edmonton andMontreal.