Clearly, the installation of a Safer Consumption Room (SCMR), better known as a shooting room, is very laborious in Bordeaux. However, it is not a question of clearing the ground on the scale of France because the first rooms of this type have already opened in Paris and Strasbourg in 2016. And, a report commissioned by the MILDECA (Interministerial Mission for the Fight against Drugs and Addictive Behaviours) from Inserm unambiguously demonstrates the interest of the systems evaluated in these cities.
Upon his arrival at the town hall, the new municipal majority wanted to move the file forward, but the opening of a SCMR, planned within the Saint-André Hospital, in downtown Bordeaux, appears today. today premature to the prefect of Gironde Fabienne Buccio. However, she says she is in favor of a meeting with the town hall, the public prosecutor and the Regional Health Agency on the subject.
The opening conditions are met
“Our project has been ready for a long time, reacts with a certain weariness Véronique Latour, president of the association La Case, the designated operator for the management of any room. It’s a sea serpent. I submitted the first project in 2010 and we are in 2022…” The credits for the work to be carried out within the premises have already been allocated, the administrative green light and the operating credits are missing. who accompany him.
The Juppé team wanted the project to be done within a hospital structure rather than an association. “There is no medical advantage to it being in the Saint André hospital but an interest in geographical location because it is in the city center and there are hardly any residents. I think it’s an interesting compromise,” comments Véronique Latour. The opening was scheduled for 2018 after the launch of the experiments but, as in Lille, in Bordeaux it is blocked.
Inserm evaluations are positive…
The assessment drawn up by Inserm in its report, made public in May 2021, is positive at all levels: for the patients concerned, the residents of these SCMRs and society in general, from an economic point of view. Patients, even very marginalized, adhere to the device since it “meets their immediate needs”, underlines Marc Auriacombe, head of the addictology department at Charles Perrens hospital in Bordeaux, who piloted one of the research teams. as part of the Inserm study. And, at least a third of the public from the Paris and Strasbourg systems, then transits to the “normal” care sector.
“The study of traces of consumption (syringes, medicine packaging, etc.) in a geographical area close to the Parisian SCMR highlights a significant reduction in syringes abandoned in public spaces, their number having been divided by three since the opening of the room”, points out for example the report. However, it also qualifies the scope of these measures which “do not, however, on their own, solve all the health and tranquility problems linked to drug use”. The effectiveness remains undeniable since some of the residents concerned come to ask for “an increase in opening hours and the opening of other SCMRs”.
“We also assessed the economic impact and it costs more to do nothing, argues Marc Auriacombe. We could say, in a cynical way, that if these disturbing people die that solves problems, except that the death of an individual (care, complications etc.) has a cost. We gain that people do not die and those who reintegrate contribute to public wealth. This type of injection room, and there are already more than a hundred around the world, has proven itself well for the scientific community.
“Everything is positive and it’s science that says so, but after that comes up against representations”, summarizes Véronique Latour.
But the project comes up against a problem of “representations”
The major prejudice to be combated in this matter remains that this type of place would increase drug consumption, offering an opportunity for injection and encouraging the gathering of drug addicts. “It’s not because we give syringes that people take drugs, it’s the opposite, clarifies Véronique Latour. We are there to participate in care and access to care and not the other way around. “For her and Doctor Marc Auriacombe it is a device that serves “the general interest”.
“Before the French experiment we could doubt but now I do not understand why there is no consensus, advances the head of the addictology department of Charles Perrens. And we know that there are people who die while waiting, it’s an emergency. He recalls that this public dependent on hard drugs has the characteristic of not being able not to consume. “The more difficulties we put in, the more damage we associate,” he believes. Hence the interest in reducing the risks in the practice of injection and in supporting this public which sometimes also combines problems of social insecurity and psychiatric illnesses.