Boston Nonprofit Plans Medically Supervised Space for People on Heroin

A nonprofit group in Boston plans to open a space this month for people using heroin to ride out their high under the supervision of a nurse and an outreach worker, NPR reports.

The room will contain basic life-saving equipment. People will not be able to take drugs in the space. The room, run by the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, will be located along a stretch of road known as Boston’s “Methadone Mile.” It includes a needle exchange program, a methadone clinic and Boston Medical Center’s emergency room.

About four Massachusetts residents die every day from a drug overdose, the article notes.

“There are people — just in the few blocks around our building and hospital — that we’re watching overdose on our way from the parking lot,” said Dr. Jessie Gaeta, Chief Medical Officer at the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program. “It’s not a place where people would be injecting. But, it’s a place where people would come if they’re high and they need a safe place to be that’s not a street corner, and not a bathroom by themselves, where they’re at high risk of dying if they do overdose.”

The group plans to convert a conference room for the program. The nurse and outreach worker would move among the 10 or so people in the room, to check breathing, other vital signs and general health. The group has not yet secured all of the funding yet, Gaeta said.

Anyone needing more than nursing care would go to the hospital across the street. The staff would try to get patients into treatment, according to Gaeta.

“We’re having problems reducing people’s involvement with drugs,” Vaughn Rees, an addiction expert at the Harvard School of Public Health, told NPR. “Short of being able to implement treatment, we need to think about how we can reduce the risk of drug use.”