The Crosstown Clinic: An Inquiry into the Experiences of Staff

Abstract

This study examined the experiences, perspectives and opinions of people who work at the Crosstown Clinic in Vancouver, BC, Canada. The Crosstown Clinic is the only program of its kind in North America, providing injectable heroin and hydromorphone to people with an entrenched opioid addiction. The study utilized a qualitative methodology, interpretive description, with an underlying critical social theory perspective. Twenty-two staff members participated in open-ended interviews. Thematic analysis revealed seven themes: from chaos to stability, putting patients at the centre, it’s not all roses, stigma hasn’t gone away, the clinic is life transforming, a little preparation would be good, and the patients have a story to tell. Three papers have been prepared from the findings of this study. The first paper outlines the first six findings from the study and discusses the implications of each. The second paper is a discussion about how the theoretical perspective, critical social theory, relates to the methodology, interpretive description. The third paper discusses the issue of informed consent for people who use opioids. The findings from this study are useful to nurses who are interested in learning more about harm reduction and its potential impact on patients as well as coming to a better understanding of how to care for this patient population.