Alberta closes supervised drug use centre at Edmonton hospital

Alberta has closed one of three supervised drug use centres in the city of Edmonton, part of the province’s new policy to shift away from overdose prevention and focus on treatment and recovery.

The centre, located at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in downtown Edmonton, closed on Tuesday. Before closing, the centre provided sterile drug use equipment and staff supervision in the event of an overdose.

Alberta Mental Health and Addiction Minister Rick Wilson announced in November that the centre would be replaced by a “rapid access treatment centre.” However, Alberta Recovery has not yet provided details on when the new centre will open.

There are currently two other supervised drug use centres operating in Edmonton: one at Radius Community Health and Healing and the other at the George Spady Centre.

Alberta began 2025 with seven supervised consumption centres: three in Edmonton and one each in Calgary, Lethbridge, Grand Prairie and Red Deer.

With the closure of the Royal Alexandra Centre and the previous Red Deer Centre, the province now has five safe consumption centres, and that number is expected to drop further.

The provincial government plans to close Calgary’s only supervised consumption centre, located at the Sheldon M. Chumir Treatment Centre, next year, said Nathaniel Duke, a spokesman for the Rick Wilson Ministry.

“Our government believes that everyone struggling with addiction deserves the opportunity to receive treatment and live a healthy, hopeful life. We also believe that Albertans should feel safe where they live and work, and that businesses should operate without disruption from social unrest,” he wrote in a statement.

Meanwhile, Calgary Mayor Jeremy Farkas said Monday that the city has not yet formally discussed the facility’s operations with the provincial government, but stressed that a transition plan is essential.

“We need to make sure that the transition is done properly and that it’s not just a case of social unrest and substance use moving from the facility to the surrounding parks and public spaces,” he said.

Calgary firefighters have also called for a plan. “We are on the front lines of the opioid crisis and unfortunately, we are seeing more and more overdoses every day. We know that closing these facilities will not reduce overdoses, and we look forward to the provincial government’s solutions.”

Earlier this year, Red Deer City Council called on the Alberta government to replace the city’s overdose prevention centre with other harm reduction measures, announcing plans to take a more proactive approach to addressing the roots of addiction and strengthening treatment services.

Similar to Red Deer, Lethbridge city leaders voted to ask the provincial government to close the city’s overdose prevention unit “as part of a planned transition to recovery-based services.”

According to data from the Alberta Substance Abuse Monitoring System released through mid-2024, supervised consumption centres in Calgary and Lethbridge have consistently been among the most visited facilities since mid-2024.

Over the past two years, both cities have seen significant declines in overdose deaths, but the decline has been much smaller in Edmonton.

In Lethbridge, the overdose death rate was about 109 per 100,000 people in 2023, but data available through August this year suggests that number has fallen to less than 10.

However, Lethbridge Mayor Blaine Hagen said last week that he was considering closing the facility because the freed up resources could be used for other vital programs, and he was skeptical about a direct link between the facility and a reduction in deaths.

In contrast, Morgan Magnuson, a registered nurse and lecturer at the University of Lethbridge, wrote an open letter urging city council to reverse its decision, warning that closing the facility would put users’ lives at risk.

The letter had garnered nearly 800 signatures as of Tuesday.

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