Public Health Sudbury & Districts (PHSD) says, barring any unforeseen delays, a report from last month’s Greater Sudbury Summit on Toxic Drugs will be released by the end of January.
The health unit shared this information after Sudbury.com published a report last week that a report to the local board of health about the summit was thin on details. You can read that story here.
After that story was published, PHSD reached out to say the report should be released by the end of the month.
“As previously committed, we are tracking to release the report from the Greater Sudbury Summit on Toxic Drugs by the end of this month, barring any unforeseen delays,” said Sandra Lacle, director, Public Health Sudbury & Districts, in a statement to Sudbury.com.
The recommendations in the report will be reviewed by the City of Greater Sudbury, Public Health Sudbury & Districts, Health Sciences North, the Canadian Mental Health Association, Réseau ACCESS Network, and the Greater Sudbury Police Service, “as well as the Indigenous community and persons with lived and living experience,” Lacle said.
Besides reviewing the document, she said those bodies will also “among other things, consider a process and community structure to carry this important work forward in a co-ordinated manner. Boards, organizations, and individuals were encouraged at the summit to continue to work together to action opportunities identified at the summit while the process is being created.”
PHSD said some of the ideas floated at the summit included safer supply, safer spaces for people to use substances, supportive housing, better care co-ordination and collaboration of care pathways, a centre for excellence in mental health and substance use, “and at the core of everything, connection, respect for those who use substances, the elimination of structural stigma, and a philosophy of do no harm.”
