News
HSE announce MQI as the preferred operator of Ireland’s first Medically Supervised Injecting Facility
On the 16th February, MQI was announced as the preferred operator of Ireland’s first Medically Supervised Injecting Facility (MSIF). The MSIF is a government-led initiative, entirely funded by the HSE.
MQI are committed to working with all partners, such as the HSE, Gardaí, Dublin City Council, local residents and businesses to ensure that this is a successful pilot.
The proposed location for this 18-month lifesaving pilot programme is the basement of our Riverbank Centre on Merchants Quay. We plan to lodge a planning application in the coming months and anticipate that the pilot MSIF will open in late 2018 or early 2019.
The MSIF will be a clean, safe, medically supervised service for people who inject drugs. As a compassionate, person-centred healthcare environment, which respects the dignity of service users, we believe that the MSIF will be a vital first step in reducing harm and supporting a person towards recovery. Staffed by experts with full nursing and medical services, it will provide opportunities for intervention, helping reduce the harms associated with injecting drug use and helping link vulnerable people in with drug treatment supports and health services.
Importantly, we also believe it will help take public injecting and drug related litter off the local streets.
With one person a day dying from a drug overdose, the MSIF is a positive, practical and health-led response to drug use. Treatment and recovery from addiction are only possible if a person is alive. Research findings from around the globe show that MSIFs not only saves lives by preventing overdose deaths, they also reduce the amount of public injecting, drug-related litter in the community and the risk of transmitting blood-borne diseases.
We will update this website regularly with progress on this initiative. Want know more about the Medically Supervised Injecting Facility? Click the link here.
