WECHU still waiting on federal approval to open SafePoint

SafePoint Consumption and Treatment Services Site at 101 Wyandotte Street East in Windsor, Ont. on Tuesday, April 4, 2023. (Travis Fortnum/CTV News Windsor)

The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit continues to wait for the required federal approval before opening the SafePoint Consumption and Treatment Services Site at 101 Wyandotte Street East.

As debate and discussion around the site swirled through the winter, WECHU had stated hopes to have the site open in March, following a virtual inspection conducted by Health Canada.

“The inspection occurred a few weeks ago, I think it was March 8,” says WECHU board chair Fabio Costante.

“To our knowledge, there were no issues with the inspection and now it’s in the hands of Health Canada.”

The site can not open without the approval of the federal government, as it needs to be given an exemption under the Controlled Drugs and Substances act.

Irek Kusmierczyk, member of parliament for Windsor-Tecumseh, says he’s doing what he can to speed up the process.

"I can tell you that I have been in direct contact, both with the health unit and also with the minister of health directly on this issue. And we are expecting and we are pushing for an expedited approval of that because we know how important that facility is for the community, and we know the community is united behind it,” Kusmierczyk told reporters Monday.

Costante says when approval does come, SafePoint will be ready to open “within about a week.”

The site also awaits approval at a provincial level — though it can open before that comes.

An application for funding was sent to the province last summer, with expectations for approval to come within a year.

Should that approval not come by July 2023, the City of Windsor will have to cover $34,000 a month in operations costs until it does.

The health unit has so far spent $775,000 on SafePoint in capital and operating expenses – with over $550,000 of that coming from the Ontario Ministry of Health’s mandatory program funding.

A spokesperson for Health Canada confirms to CTV News that there are two applications under review from the SafePoint site.

One is the application to operate a Supervised Consumption Site (SCS) on the property.

Secondly, Health Canada says, WECHU has applied to operate an Urgent Public Health Need Site (UPHNS) at SafePoint while completing remaining items relating to the SCS application.

In a written statement, the spokesperson says: “During a site visit for a prospective UPHNS or SCS, minor items might be identified that must be addressed prior to an application for a new site proceeding to the decision stage, which can affect review timelines.”

They add that, “there is no set timeframe of how long it takes for a decision to be issued regarding these types of applications, due to the variation in the completeness and complexity of the application.”