Melbourne’s supervised injecting room has led to a substantial reduction in the number of heroin-related ambulance callouts in the first five years since it opened, new research has found.
Researchers say the analysis of ambulance data is the strongest Australian evidence yet that supervised injecting facilities reduced acute heroin-related harms.
The study by Monash University and addiction treatment centre Turning Point found that the number of heroin-related ambulance attendances dropped by 71% five years after the Medically Supervised Injecting Room (MSIR) opened in North Richmond.
“The opening of the MSIR in Richmond was associated with a significant and sustained reduction in the rate of heroin-related ambulance attendances within its catchment area,” they wrote in the study published in the International Journal of Drug Policy.
The researchers used data from the National Ambulance Surveillance System to track heroin-related ambulance attendances within the catchment of the MSIR between January 2015 and December 2023.
Over that nine-year period, there were 24,701 heroin-related ambulance attendances in Victoria.
The researchers found that the number of attendances within the MSIR catchment declined more than in central Melbourne and the rest of the state.
When the MSIR opened in July 2018, heroin-related ambulance attendances were rising and there were around 48 heroin-related ambulance attendances per month within the MSIR area, equivalent to 123 per 100,000 population.
That rate was more than six times the rate in central Melbourne and almost 40 times the rate across the state.
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At the end of the study in December 2023, the number of attendances in the MSIR vicinity had fallen to around 14 per month, or a rate of 36 per 100,000.
Turning Point senior statistician and senior research fellow at Turning Point and Monash University, Associate Professor Bosco Rowland, said the findings gave the strongest Australian evidence yet that supervised injecting facilities reduced acute heroin-related harms at a population level.
“Before the MSIR opened, heroin-related ambulance attendances in the Richmond and Abbotsford area were the highest in Victoria and increasing,” Professor Rowland said.
“After it opened, we saw a significant shift to a sustained declining trend.
“Importantly, we didn’t see the same scale of reduction in central Melbourne or across the rest of Victoria, which strengthens the case that the MSIR itself is driving the change.”
Turning Point executive clinical director and director of the Monash Addiction Research Centre, Professor Dan Lubman, said the findings reinforced the role of harm reduction services in reducing pressure on emergency services.
“This research shows that the MSIR is not only saving lives inside the facility – it is reducing the burden of heroin-related emergencies on ambulance services in the surrounding community,” Professor Lubman said.
“These are real-world outcomes captured over nine years of ambulance data. The evidence is clear that the MSIR is delivering measurable public health benefits for the local community.”
The researchers said the reductions in ambulance callouts continued throughout the covid lockdown period and after restrictions were lifted.
“The findings demonstrate a substantial and geographically concentrated reduction in heroin-related ambulance attendances following the introduction of the MSIR, providing strong population-level support for the effectiveness of MSIR services as a harm reduction intervention in high-need urban settings,” they wrote in the study.
“Continued evaluation using complementary health and social outcome measures is warranted to inform future service planning and the potential expansion of MSIR services to other high-need areas across metropolitan Melbourne and beyond.”
Since the MSIR opened, it has recorded more than 600,000 visits and no overdose deaths, responding to more than 11,000 overdose incidents and providing more than 177,000 health and social support interventions.
In 2024, the Victorian government announced it would not go ahead with plans to open a second supervised injecting room in Melbourne’s CBD.
Meanwhile, the Sydney supervised injecting facility that opened in 2001 has recorded more than one million supervised injections among almost 18,000 registered clients, and has managed almost 11,000 overdose events without any deaths.
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