Interior Health says it is planning to build a permanent supervised consumption site in Kamloops.
In a statement to NL News, it says there will be more details to share in the coming months.
For now, drug users are being encouraged to use the mobile supervised consumption site that is parked at the Crossroads Inn at Sixth Avenue and Seymour Street downtown.
There were a record 77 people who died of an overdose in the City of Kamloops last year. When you add in the neighbouring communities of Sun Peaks, Barriere, Chase, Logan Lake, and the surrounding rural areas, there were 87 such deaths reported in 2021.
The Kamloops Local Health Area had an illicit drug toxicity death rate of 68.3 per 100,000 people, slightly below the 72.6 per 100,000 people in Vancouver, where there were 524 deaths reported in 2021.
In the Central Okanagan Local Health Area, which includes Kelowna, where a permanent supervised consumption site opened in May 2021, there were 86 overdose deaths last year for a illicit drug toxicity death rate of 38.3 per 100,000 people.
There were 73 overdose deaths in the City of Kelowna, tying the record set in 2017.
– With files from Paul James