PI: Yasser Ismail (Casey House)
Project Team: Casey Schapel (Casey House), Alessandro Bisignano (Casey House)
Casey House is a hospital in Toronto that provides inpatient and outpatient services, harm reduction, and social support for people who are living with and at risk of HIV/AIDS. In 2022, Casey House became the third hospital in Canada to offer an on-site supervised consumption site (SCS), and the first in Ontario to offer indoor supervised inhalation. This research project, led by Dr. Yasser Ismail, established an advisory committee of people who use drugs (PWUD) in early 2024, bringing together diverse voices to shape harm reduction services, advance the understanding of supervised inhalation services within hospital settings, and determine best practices for supporting individuals who use these services.
From February 2025 through March 2025, the advisory committee has engaged in monthly meeting sessions, along with other collaborative opportunities for knowledge-sharing within the hospital. The committee provided recommendations to improve the SCS and other harm reduction services delivered at the hospital, and contributed to the development of harm reductions strategies and wrap-around services to support people who inhale drugs and other PWUD. This work led to the presentation of the Casey House SCS Inhalation Case Study in early 2025.
In 2025-26, Casey House has continued to engage the PWUD advisory committee members and supporting their work to engage other PWUD in using the SCS and employing safer usage strategies, including the implementation of a supply pickup program. In addition, as our Peer Program has grown we have created pathways for PWUD to gain meaningful work as peer support workers at Casey House. Due to the closures of other SCSs and associated increases in demand at our site, we have increased capacity at our SCS and have provided meaningful opportunities for the PWUD advisory committee to advise on programming in a context of capacity growth.