Woman who lost nephews to drug overdoses welcomes Melbourne's safe injection room

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Judy Ryan’s family has been touched by the drug scourge after losing two nephews – her sisters’ sons – to heroin overdoses. 

“One was 21 and one was 28. We’re just a normal nice family, just like everybody else. Things happen in people’s lives,” she told SBS World News.

Now as a resident of Melbourne’s heroin hot spot, Ms Ryan says she witnesses the addiction tragedy nearly every day.

The plight of one woman is something that she remembers as particularly disturbing.

“She collapsed because she had hit an artery and she bled to death between the cars,” Ms Ryan said.

“We knew her. She was a lovely young woman, she had children and she died in this horrible space.”

As a local, Ms Ryan welcomed the announcement of a two-year trial of a safe injecting room in the inner-suburb of North Richmond.

“It will save lives, there’s no doubt. Looking in Sydney and other supervised injecting centres internationally, there’s not been one life lost,” she said.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews made the announcement on Tuesday.

“It’s a change in policy there is no question about that but it’s a change that’s very much needed,” he said.

“What if it was my son, or my daughter? What if it was someone I cared about? What if we could do something different to save lives?”

The facility here will be modelled on the success of Sydney’s safe injecting rooms.

In the 16 years since it opened, the Kings Cross centre has supervised more than a million injections, treated almost 7,500 overdoses and experienced not one death.

Doctors, paramedics and locals say the drug injecting facility in Melbourne will save lives after a spike in overdose deaths.

This year there have been 34 deaths in the area around the proposed site for the trial.

Dr Marianne Jauncey, from Kings Cross Supervised Injecting Centre, said: “The tragedy is that heroin overdose deaths are avoidable. If there is someone with them who is trained and able to act those deaths don’t need to occur.”

Paramedics also agreed the new initiative would help with the drug problem.

“There is no doubt in this area the workload for paramedics will be reduced significantly,” Ambulance Victoria officer Mick Stephenson said.

But the Opposition is sceptical about the trial.

“Why has the Premier back-flipped?” Victoria’s Shadow Mental Health Minister Emma Kealy said.

“Why has he gone through such a rapid change to introduce a drug injection room in Victoria when he was dead against it just a month ago?”

If the laws pass parliament, Australia’s second supervised facility will be operating from mid next year.