No more time to lose on opioid situation

Hundreds of health-care workers have requested that Ontario declare a state of emergency as a result of the opioid crisis. Such a declaration would allow for an influx of funding — the signatories to an open letter to Premier Kathleen Wynne asking for the declaration estimate it should run into the millions of dollars for more overdose-prevention sites, money for frontline workers and opioid programs.

The government would be well advised to listen; if it doesn’t declare a state of emergency, it should at least take to heart the requests and make decisions quickly.

While government mulls policy, people are dying and landing in hospital. Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins has said more plans are coming soon. It’s hard to escape the sense that soon isn’t soon enough.

As both Toronto and Ottawa have seen un-sanctioned pop-up supervised-injection sites open in recent weeks, it’s clear that, on the ground, there’s the feeling the government response isn’t enough and that drastic action is needed.

Whatever one’s views on such sites — and it is troubling to have unsanctioned sites operating — it’s even more concerning that some feel such a step is necessary. Meanwhile, the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre in Ottawa hopes to accelerate its plans to open a government-approved supervised-injection site in a matter of weeks — not in October or November as initially planned.

This isn’t just Ontario, either, or the rest of Canada: Earlier this month, the White House panel examining the opioid crisis in the United States recommended that U.S. President Donald Trump declare a public health emergency.

British Columbia did so in April 2016. It allowed for the collection of real-time data. Long on the list of complaints of those grappling with the spate of overdoses and deaths is that Ontario isn’t keeping accurate data. At the moment, the province’s most up-to-date data are from March of this year, and show only hospitalizations and emergency visits. Statistics on deaths are available only up to June 2016.

The Ontario government must do more and more quickly, with or without an emergency declaration — though, as addiction physician Alexander Caudarella points out it would be symbolically powerful to all those labouring in the midst of the crisis.

The costs of underreacting to this crisis are quite simply too high, and will result in more dead, more devastated families and more tragedy on our streets.

There’s no time to lose.