Despite pandemic slowdowns, Correctional Service Canada is still planning to expand the needle exchange programs currently offered at nine federal prisons, government officials say.
At a presentation given to the International AIDS Conference in Montreal on the weekend, Henry de Souza, the agency's director general of clinical services and public health, said "a number of institutions" have been identified for an expansion, and the program will continue to be implemented across the country.
These programs are in addition to the country's only prison-based "overdose prevention service," which began operating in 2019 at the men's medium-security Drumheller Institution in Alberta. It is essentially a supervised injection site, offering sterile equipment and consumption under observation. "I'm encouraged by the way they're describing the program as something they're proud of," says Sandra Ka Hon Chu, co-executive director of the HIV Legal Network.
There was a lot of "fake news" to battle, Huish said, including a billboard erected outside the prison that painted the program in a negative light.
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