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Overdose-prevention sites in the Downtown Eastside will remain open later than usual this Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday (April 26 to 28).

The sites—places where people can go to inject drugs under the supervision of workers trained to respond to an overdose—will run with extended hours on those days to coincide with the issuing of monthly welfare cheques.

Jennifer Breakspear is executive director of the Portland Hotel Society, the nonprofit that operates Vancouver’s supervised-injection site, Insite, and one of the city’s several new overdose-prevention sites.

“The overdose crisis shows no signs of letting up,” she told the Straight. “We believe strongly in the importance of providing a safe space for folks in the community to be able to use their substances. And moving to 24 hours during cheque week ensures that as many people as possible are going to be accessing services rather than using alone.”

Insite, at 138 East Hastings Street, is normally open from 9 a.m. to 3 a.m. Since August 2016, it has stayed open 24 hours a day on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays during welfare weeks.

Breakspear said that PHS's government partner on Insite, Vancouver Coastal Health, is reviewing the need for extended hours at Insite on a month-to-month basis and that for now, its doors will remain open longer on those days.

An overdose-prevention site (OPS) is similar to Insite but operates without registered nurses. Instead, they are mostly staffed by peers (the government’s term for past and present drug users).

This week, the OPS attached to the Maple Hotel, at 177 East Hastings, will also remain open 24 hours a day for the three days following the issuing of welfare cheques.

MOPS—the community’s nickname for this site, short for Maple Overdose Prevention Site—is accessed via an alley off East Hastings, 20 metres west of Main Street. Its regular hours are 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Another OPS, at the back of 62 East Hastings, will also remain open later than usual beginning on the day welfare cheques are issued.

The trailer’s regular hours are 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. This Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, it will continue to supervise injections and people smoking drugs until midnight or later.

Three injection sites operating with extended hours during the weeks that welfare checks are issued are located at 62 East Hastings, 139 East Hastings, and 177 East Hastings. Travis Lupick / Google Maps

Last November, a study conducted by the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS found that people using drugs in B.C. were 40 percent more likely to experience a fatal overdose during the week of the month when welfare cheques are issued.

More recently, however, the City of Vancouver has issued several media releases emphasizing that first responders are seeing spikes in overdose calls at all times of the month.

“Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services reported 92 overdose calls for the week of March 6, a drop from the previous week but still higher compared to historical data,” reads a March 16 release, for example. “While there is a popular perception that rates always spike during income assistance cheque week, our data demonstrates overdoses are happening all the time and very challenging to predict.”

A notice posted outside the overdose-prevention site attached to the Maple Hotel over the Easter weekend warned drug users about a light blue substance that was being sold as heroin. Travis Lupick

Last year, 931 people died of an illicit-drug overdose death in B.C. That compares to an average of 212 deaths annually from 2001 to 2010. According to the latest monthly coroner’s report, about 89 percent of fatal overdoses occur indoors, where an individual is more likely to be using drugs alone.