City drags feet on needles found in Vancouver park
Credit to Author: Matt Robinson| Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2019 00:07:36 +0000
Last Saturday, at around 10 a.m., Dave Young was walking with his kids in a Vancouver park, when he came across a sight that would strike fear into any parent — nearly a dozen used hypodermic needles and syringes were strewn across the children’s playground.
There were needles stuck in the sand. There were needles at the foot of the climbing wall. And there was even a needle tucked under the slide.
Yet despite Young’s concern about what he saw, the City of Vancouver told him they couldn’t do anything about the sharps until the next business day, Monday. The response left Young and his wife, Katie Lewis, fired up and wanting to see a change to the way the city’s parks are swept of drug paraphernalia.
For Lewis, who is also the vice-president of the Strathcona Residents Association, it was simply not an option to leave the needles in the playground at MacLean Park during the two days in the week it would be most frequented by kids. So she roped off the playground, snapped rubber gloves over her hands and — not being trained or even informed on how to safely dispose of the needles — picked up and discarded them with tongs. A few neighbours then helped rake out the sand to search for any hidden needles that had been missed.
“I feel very confident in saying what’s happening right now isn’t really working,” she said of the city’s response.
Howard Norman, the director of Vancouver’s park board, said response times to clean up discarded needles depend on where the call comes in from and who is available to pick them up. But he said it normally takes just three to four hours for a cleanup.
In worst case scenarios, residents may be told it will take up to 24 hours, Norman said. He didn’t know why Young was told it would take two days, and he said 311 operators are aware of who to contact when a needle call comes in.
Norman said the city uses 311 calls to help find new hot spots for needles, and it uses partner agencies like Spikes on Bikes to supplement work by its park attendants in picking them up. He said he had already contacted the works yard responsible for the park to see if increased visits to the park were needed based on recent activity.
“Was this just a straight one-off? I don’t know. But I’m already looking into it. I’m always hopeful it’s a one-off,” he said. “When we find these one-offs, yes it’s shocking when you first find them. It’s something you prefer not to see in the park.”
Vancouver Coastal Health also works on the issue, and it has installed 40 needle recovery boxes in lanes and parks in the city over the last few years. VCH funds about 1,700 community sweeps per year, as well as a needle exchange and recovery van, which operates 20 hours a day, every day of the year.
Tiffany Akins, a VCH spokeswoman, said discarded needles present an “extremely low” risk to the public.
“No one has ever acquired HIV, or any other pathogen, from a needle-stick injury from a discarded needle in a park or any other public place in Vancouver,” Akins said.
Lewis said she has been trying to educate her kids, four-year-old twins Clark and Sophie, about discarded needles since they were two. Needles are something the family does encounter now and again, and more frequently of late.
“The reality of living in Vancouver is that it’s your responsibility as a parent to teach your kids about this kind of stuff,” she said.