The city’s two government-funded safe injection sites transported at least 46 people by ambulance to hospitals for cardiac arrest, life-threatening strokes or seizures, the New York Post reported.
However, OnPoint, the nonprofit operating the facilities, does not track what happened to these patients or whether they survived, the report said.
The city Health Department, which oversees the sites, did not say whether it tracks outcomes in Harlem and Washington Heights, according to to the Post.
Overdoses at the centers increased 7%, from 636 to 683, between the first and second years of operation, according to OnPoint’s annual report. Total visits rose 26% from the first year, when people visited 48,533 times. Repeat clients increased 108%, with 177 clients coming to use drugs more than once daily in 2023, up from 77 in 2022, the report said.
“We increased the overall number of visits and frequency of visits to the Overdose Prevention Centers. These are significant successes,” OnPoint stated in its annual report.
According to the Post, over the two-year period, the data shows crack and heroin account for the majority of drug use at the facilities.
The report shows 14% of clients received services related to buprenorphine, a treatment for opioid addiction, but does not specify how many actually agreed to receive treatment.
“Their focus is facilitating drug use, and they don’t think that it is obligatory to try to get people to stop using drugs. They don’t really care about long-term outcomes,” Lehman said.
Officials hinted at plans in August to shut down the two centers, which are considered illegal under federal law, after President Donald Trump targeted them in an executive order, the report said.
Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani co-sponsored the “Safer Consumption Services Act” in October and said he would keep the two current sites but not expand the program.