Pharmacists say Kelowna needs injectable treatment
VANCOUVER — Chronic opioid users in rural and remote communities in British Columbia need access to supervised injectable treatment that is already available in the Vancouver area, says the head of the BC Pharmacy Association.
Geraldine Vance said the overdose epidemic demands immediate involvement by community pharmacists who have the skills to dispense medications, such as the opioid pain reliever hydromorphone, and monitor patients.
Vance said Williams Lake and Kelowna are among the communities that need supervised injectable treatment with hydromorphone, which is provided along with pharmaceutical heroin at the Crosstown clinic in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
“Not Kelowna, where on a per capita basis the deaths from overdoses are higher. The problem cannot be contained to a few blocks in Vancouver, and everybody knows that.”
Two pilot projects involving hydromorphone are underway in Vancouver, with two pharmacies participating.
However, Vance said pharmacists could be involved in up to 20 such projects elsewhere in the province.
Vance’s association has been in talks with the BC Centre on Substance Use and the BC Centre for Disease Control since last spring about expanding the role of pharmacists during the opioid epidemic.
“Our view at this point is that given the nature of how significant the crisis is in the province as a whole, that we should move forward with those pilots,” she said.
Mental Health and Addictions Minister Judy Darcy said last week she has tasked health authorities to look into scaling up the use of hydromorphone across the province.
Darcy was not available to comment Monday on the role of pharmacists.
The coroner’s service has said 1,013 people died of illicit-drug overdoses in British Columbia between January and August this year, eclipsing a record 982 deaths in 2016.
The highest increase in the death rate per 100,000 people occurred in the Okanagan, where the rate jumped from 20.9 in 2016 to 45.6 between January and August.