Ontario announces funding to fight opioids

Ontario is putting an additional $ 222 million over three years toward fighting an opioid crisis that the government said claimed the lives of 865 people in the province last year.

“This is a national crisis comprised of literally thousands of individual tragedies,” Health Minister Eric Hoskins said Tuesday. “Each life lost represents a valued individual.”

More t han 7 00 doctors, nurses, harm reduction workers and academics called on the province this week to declare opioid deaths and overdoses a public health emergency, as British Columbia did last year. But Premier Kathleen Wynne said an emergency declaration i s more appropriate for time- limited events.

“When there’s an emergency declaration you’re usually dealing with a situation that has a beginning and a foreseeable end, whether it’s a flood or a fire,” Wynne said. “The challenge with this situation is this is not a situation that has a foreseeable end.

We’re t alking about a crisis that is going to be ongoing.”

Data released Tuesday shows that 865 people died in 2016 in Ontario due to opioids, up from 728 opioidrelated deaths in 2015.

The funding announced Tuesday brings the province’s commitment to fighting the opioid crisis to $ 280 million over three years.

The funding includes $20 million to expand the supply of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone at emergency departments, and $ 70 mill i on to expand access to treatment and communitybased withdrawal management services and addictions programs, as well as $ 10 million to add more front- line harm- reduction workers.

It also includes $ 12 million for Indigenous- specific care, $ 8 million for youthspecific services, $7.6 million to partner with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, $ 15 million to support health care providers on appropriate pain management and opioid prescribing and $ 23 million for needle exchanges and supervised injection services.