MORE than 1000 visits have been made to the UK’s first safer drugs consumption facility since it opened, new figures have revealed.
Glasgow City Council confirmed that 143 people have visited The Thistle Centre a total of 1067 times.
The figures cover the first seven weeks of its operation, from Monday January 13 to Sunday March 2.
Over that period, nursing staff at the centre have supervised users injecting drugs more than 700 times – with people injecting cocaine, heroin or both.
The council said that a “number of medical emergencies” had been managed, with the help of the Scottish Ambulance Service required for some of these.
However, the council said that the people involved had recovered, and had been provided with further harm reduction and support from staff at the Thistle.
This follows recent alleged disinformation spreading online wherein a local councillor suggests the site has sparked an increase in public injectors in the area.
Other councillors dispute this claim, saying there is no evidence of an increase in discarded needles since the Thistle opened.
The new figures were released ahead of MPs on Westminster’s Scottish Affairs Committee taking evidence on the centre on Wednesday.
Speaking ahead of that Allan Casey, convener for addiction services at Glasgow City Council, said: “We are really pleased with how things are going at this early stage.
“The Thistle is a new service, unique to Scotland. It is reassuring to know how well it’s running and it’s reaching the population it hoped to.
“The team have saved lives and are helping greater numbers of people than we ever expected to in the first seven weeks of opening.”
“Lives have been saved, people who have felt marginalised and distant from support are engaging with staff and the early feedback from service users and wider partners is positive.”
The centre is open 365 days a year, from 9am to 9pm, with further updates on its work due to be provided to Glasgow’s Integration Joint Board, while an independent evaluation is also to be carried out.
