KAMLOOPS THIS WEEK TUESDAY
LOCAL NEWS
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JUNE 6, 2017 | Volume 30 No. 67
TODAY’S WEATHER
RCMP MUSICAL RIDE ON WAY TO KAMLOOPS • PAGE A14
Sunny and warm High 29 C Low 15 C
IH motorhome hits city streets today
CARVING INTO HISTORY
Sa-Hali secondary social studies teacher Mike Kippes (left) and Grade 9 student Jacob Haines (far right) learn to build a cottonwood dugout canoe with hand tools outside the main entrance to the school. The travelling work in progress is touring area schools, giving students an opportunity to learn from aboriginal education worker Shane Camille (second from left) and canoe carver Frank Marchand. The project is in its fifth week in local schools, with a deadline for completion and display on June 21, marking National Aboriginal Day, summer solstice and the 25th anniversary of Quaaout Lodge, which will become the canoe’s permanent home. DAVE EAGLES/KTW
ANDREA KLASSEN STAFF REPORTER andrea@kamloopsthisweek.com
A refurbished motorhome that will eventually provide a place for people to safely take drugs hits the streets today. Rae Samson, administrator for mental heath and substance abuse services for Interior Health West, told KTW the 30-foot-long retrofitted RV will park behind ASK Wellness’s Tranquille Road office on the North Shore from noon to 3 p.m. before moving to the parking lot of Crossroads Inn downtown at Seymour Street and Sixth Avenue from 3:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. The mobile unit will be in operation Tuesdays through Saturdays. While it is designed to eventually operate as a safe drug use site, Interior Health does not yet have permission from Health Canada to allow for that use, Samson said. In the meantime, the RV will offer overdose-prevention services. A nurse and social worker, as well as outreach workers from ASK Wellness, will be on site. “They’ll be able to provide harmreduction supplies and they’ll be able to monitor anyone who may be at risk for overdose,” Samson said. Staff can also administer Naloxone, a drug that temporarily counteracts the effects of an opiate overdose. The mobile unit is also outfitted for basic health-care services, including wound care and other treatments.
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This is the RV that will be used as a supervised drug-use site in downtown Kamloops and on the North Shore.
Samson said the same services are already provided at Crossroads and ASK through overdose-prevention centres that have been running for some time, noting the RV is considered an extension of those services. She said a mobile unit already operating in Kelowna (but also awaiting Health Canada permission for drug consumption) is seeing up to 40 people per day. Samson said Interior Health is hopeful it will soon have Health Canada’s approval for consumption services. “They reviewed our application and they just requested more clarification around criminal records checks for staff that will be working on the unit and some clarification around any the disposal of any substances that could be left on the unit,” she said. Interior Health is the only health region in B.C. using a mobile model for its supervised drug-use sites, Samson said, though Health Canada has allowed fixed sites to move ahead in the Coast and Fraser health regions.
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