The Positive Side

“Patrick McDougall is the director of knowledge translation and evaluation at Dr. Peter Centre, an HIV facility with a SCS in Vancouver’s West End (pictured). As one of the first two SCS in Canada, their start was more ad hoc than Prairie Harm Reduction’s. McDougall explains that when they started supervising injections in 2002, they didn’t have a formal exemption. Instead, Dr. Peter Centre found a way to open without one. “We consulted with the Registered Nurses Association of British Columbia, who said that ser- vice was within the scope of nursing practice,” he says. In 2003 they were granted a federal exemption along with Insite, another SCS in Vancouver.”

Written by Matthew Bonn