‘How many people are going to die?’
Jennifer Johnston wonders how many more lives will be lost while the provincial government re-assesses plans to establish overdose prevention sites in Ontario.
All approved overdose prevention sites — including one that was to open in St. Catharines next month — have been put on hold by the province, pending a review of “the evidence and speaking to experts to ensure that any continuation of supervised consumption services and overdose prevention sites are going to introduce people into rehabilitation and ensure people struggling with addiction will get the help they need,” Health Minister Christine Elliott wrote in a letter sent to local health integration networks and health units on Friday.
“In the interim, while they’re searching for merit, how many people are going to die?” asked Johnston, who lost her 25-yearold son Jonathan to a fentanyl overdose on April 20, 2016.
“How are those families going to feel knowing it’s because the government is dragging their heels?” she said.
Niagara’s associate medical officer of health Dr. Andrea Feller said the overdose prevention sites are “known to have lifesaving benefits.”
However, she pointed out that the site planned for St. Catharines will likely only see a “relatively small percent of all who need life-saving assistance … On one hand, these are known to be lifesaving. On the other hand, we have a lot of lives that need attention.”
Johnston and the parents of several others who died as a result of drug overdoses formed a group called Niagara Area Moms Ending Stigma (NAMES), and have spent a year sharing their stories of loss and lobbying for an overdose prevention site in Niagara to help prevent others from meeting the same fate.
Niagara’s first overdose prevention site, to be operated by Positive Living Niagara in St. Catharines, which was to operate for six months in the hope of preventing opioid overdoses, had already been approved with $140,000 in funding, and efforts were underway to hire staff for the facility, said Positive Living executive director Glen Walker.
“For us, obviously it’s disappointing,” Walker said.
However, he said once the minister has conducted the review she will move forward with the implementation of the sites.
“I think the evidence is really clear that the sites work. I think the current tone that I’m getting from the minister and the government is that they’re really concerned about access to treatment and care, and these sites do make a really strong connection into these services.”
But in the meantime, Walker said Positive Living is “just going to put things on hold.”
“For us, we were very anxious to get moving on the project,” he said. “We certainly saw it as a very good stepping stone for us to look at how effective would this type of a site be for the people of Niagara.”
Johnston also remains hopeful the overdose prevention site will ultimately open its doors, even if it will likely be delayed by months.
Learning about the delay left Johnston and members of NAMES “extremely heart-sick,” she said.
“It’s been all we can focus on right now. It’s heartbreaking, it really is,” she said.
Feller said she had difficulty sleeping following the news, thinking about people like Johnston and Sandi Walker Tantardini who lost her son Scott to an overdose.
“This is something that’s deeply emotional,” Feller said.
But Feller, too, remains hopeful the provincial review will be completed as quickly as possible, with positive results.
She said the sites are “not the answer to everything,” and some people might choose to avoid using them.
However, Niagara’s site is an integral part of Niagara’s overall efforts to address the opioid crisis.
“Niagara has really stepped up. We’re all partners, basically holding hands or rowing the boat together on all four pillars that we need to work on,” Feller said, referring to pillars include prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and enforcement.
While overdose prevention sites are part of the harm reduction strategy, she said they continue to be stigmatized by some people.
“This work has often been underground, and there was a huge stigma and people didn’t want to talk about it,” Feller said. “I’m not surprised that some people need to take a pause and understand that this is certainly not a site that in any way encourages people to use more or to keep using. It’s an opportunity to start to connect them to services as soon as they’re ready.”