With 140 people treated for overdoses in three months, the room has been hailed a success. But a change of government could see the trial scuppered in an instant

At Melbourne’s first-ever safe-injecting room, people who come here to use heroin sometimes accidentally drop their stash into the large bin that sits against the wall.

When that happens, staff will help the person – strung out and now a little stressed – fish their drugs out of the rubbish. On their way out, they might have a blood test, their first dental check-up in years, or just a hot cup of Milo.

“We enable people to inject in the centre because that’s what they do,” the medical director, Nico Clark, tells Guardian Australia during a recent visit to the North Richmond Community Health Centre. “The majority are dependent on their substances. The purpose is not to be a place that facilitates injection per se, the purpose is to keep people alive.”

Victorian government rejects criticism of drug-injecting room saying it is saving lives Read more

The centre is a response to a coroner’s report that noted the 34 heroin-related deaths in the area in 2016. Politically troubled by law and order issues, Daniel Andrews’ government had long opposed the centre, before the threat of losing an inner city byelection to the Greens appeared to prompt an about-face. The byelection late last year was lost, but the plan for a safe injecting room remained.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Medical director Nico Clark says the Victorian Coalition’s continued criticism of the statistics the North Richmond Community Health Centre has released is ‘cheeky’. Photograph: Luke Henriques-Gomes/The Guardian

Now three months into the trial, and with the November state election looming, Clark and the Victorian government have been keen to laud the centre as a success.

There have been 8,000 visits and 140 people had been treated for potentially life-threatening overdoses, according to recent figures. “This was [set up] to save lives, every indication is this facility is saving lives,” the mental health minister, Martin Foley, said as he revealed the statistics late last month.

But the centre’s location on Lennox Street, about 350 metres from the Vietnamese eateries of Victoria Street, and next door to Richmond West primary school, remains a point of contention. The Coalition opposition announced in April it would scrap the trial if it wins the election.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Some 8,000 people have visited Melbourne’s first-ever safe-injecting room since it opened three months ago. Photograph: Luke Henriques-Gomes/The Guardian

‘A warzone’

For Judy Ryan, who began campaigning for the safe-injecting room about 18 months ago, that pledge is “insane”.

Ryan lives on the other side of Victoria Street in Abbotsford, about 500 metres from the centre. Over her side fence is a small alley where people inject heroin.

On the day Guardian Australia visits, there are a few swabs and syringes buried in the corner. “This would have been chock-a-block [before the centre],” says Ryan, who lost her nephew to an overdose.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Syringes and other drug paraphernalia lie in an alley in North Richmond. Photograph: Luke Henriques-Gomes/The Guardian

She pops her head round the corner to see if anyone is slumped in the alley when she enters her property through her back gate. Countless times she has heard cries for help from the friend of a person who is nonresponsive, she says.

Ryan takes Guardian Australia through a small, labyrinthine network of alleys that she calls “the warzone”, passing through a small estate of low-rise public housing she says is mostly inhabited by older women.

The corners around people’s homes are littered with syringes, spoons and swabs as well as other rubbish. “Imagine taking your last breath here,” says Ryan, who has announced plans to run for Fiona Patten’s Reason party at the state election.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Campaigner Judy Ryan says it would be ‘insane’ for the safe-injecting room to be shuttered. Photograph: Luke Henriques-Gomes/The Guardian

‘We shouldn’t be taking the risk’

The facility sits between a large public housing estate and a local primary school and is open seven days a week. Not everyone is pleased it exists.

Neil Mallet lives about 300 metres away. “If you were sitting down and doing the town planning, and you said, ‘We’ll put people who’ve got the drug problems right next door to the four-to-12-year-olds,’ … you’d be laughed out of the room,” he says.

Mallet says his two boys no longer walk to school. With the election approaching, he wants the government to halt construction on the new, larger facility.

Drugs are a health and social issue. Why do we make it a law enforcement battle? | Alex Wodak Read more

“My feeling is simply for the kids,” he says. “We shouldn’t be taking that risk, however small it is, with their welfare. They’ve got a right to a safe and secure environment. I don’t think anyone, hand on heart, can say that’s 100% guaranteed.”

The school has said it supports the centre, including its location, but its principal declined to be interviewed. After initial scepticism, the local traders’ association also backs the trial. “I want it to stay open and I want them to continue to save lives,” says Meco Ho, the association’s president, who runs a Vietnamese restaurant.

When the government said it would push ahead with construction of a larger purpose-built facility in August, the shadow mental health minister, Emma Kealy, suggested it was “only matter of time” until Labor announced more trials in other suburbs.

People are sick. Would you close a hospital just because it suits you to fan the flames? Resident Greg Hordacre

“The Liberal Nationals do not believe there is a safe way to use drugs like heroin or ‘ice’,” Kealy told Guardian Australia in a statement, while accusing the government of cutting funding to rehabilitation services, a claim Labor denies.

The opposition has also gone so far as to say they do not believe the statistics provided by Clark, a move he describes as “cheeky”.

“I’m not quite sure what the basis for their reasoning is,” he says, adding that as of early September, the government had “never asked us about the data”.

“They’ve never come and seen the facility. We’d be happy to show them the data and show them the facility.”

Kealy did not respond to a question about whether she planned to visit the centre.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A mural in North Richmond symbolising the 34 heroin-related deaths in the area in 2016. Photograph: Luke Henriques-Gomes/The Guardian

Ryan’s neighbour, Greg Hordacre, is used to finding heroin users on his property. When Guardian Australia visited last week, a dishevelled man was perched behind a car in the corner of Hordacre’s carport.

“If I’m aware that there are people there I always check on them,” Hordacre says. “I always let them know now that there’s an injecting centre, and I like to find out how come they’re in there and not in the injecting centre.

“There can be different reasons. I’ve spoken to people who inject each other, they’re not allowed to do that in the injecting centre. There’s also a guy who’s there quite often who smokes, which you’re not allowed to do there.”

Hordacre also notes that the emergency services sirens that were once “like a background noise” in the neighbourhood had dissipated. Ho, the restaurant owner, says people have stopped shooting up behind his restaurant.

How does Hordacre feel that the trial might end with a change of government? “I just can’t even imagine that happening,” he says. “It would be like closing a hospital or a dental service. People are sick. Would you close a hospital just because it suits you to fan the flames?”