Faces of an opioid crisis
Niagara responds to emotional pleas from bereaved moms
Heart-wrenching pain and frustration in a system they say failed their children brought five women to Niagara’s public health committee meeting Tuesday.
Each of the women, including Jennifer Johnston, Sandi Walker Tantardini, Wilma Thompson, Ann Minors and Judith Rossman, carried photographs of their adult children who died far too young — falling victim to the opioid crisis that has been sweeping through Canada.
By sharing their tragic stories, the women hoped regional political leaders would take action to prevent others from suffering the same fate.
“Never in one million years did I think this could happen to my intelligent, intuitive, charming, success-driven son,” Johnston said describing her son Jonathan as grief overwhelmed her.
“I implore you to move forward with radical steps, and, yes, we know they are radical. But we need to do this or an entire generation is going to be decimated,” she told committee members.
“Do you really want to wait until it’s your niece or your nephew or, God forbid, your child? Our kids are dying in droves, some as young as 14. We’ve all seen the news stories — death, destruction, chaos, shattered families nationwide.”
They weren’t expecting much prior to the meeting, but were pleasantly surprised by the response from committee members who unanimously supported a motion instructing Niagara’s health department to lead efforts to find a solution to the problem.
The motion by Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati instructs the public health to consult with health agencies in Western Canada who have already dealt with the crisis, and co-ordinate efforts with emergency responders, health agencies, educators and others to develop an “all out massive action approach to education, awareness and investment in addressing prevention and care strategies for the opioid crisis.”
Diodati told the women that they “took the difficult road” by choosing to take action, rather than just quietly coping with their loss.
And by doing so, he told them that they are making a difference.
“These stories that you’re sharing here, that makes it real,” he said.
His comments were echoed by several other committee members during the meeting.
Johnston said her son was a successful chef in Toronto, struggling with an addiction to heroin. On April 20, 2016, she said he took his usual hit of the drug, “but the heroin he assumed he was taking was instead 99 per cent fentanyl.”
Walker Tantardini said her son Scott “owned his own home had a beautiful fiancée and a bright future.”
He died Aug. 27, 2016, at age 27. “He lost it all.” Thompson said she spoke to her daughter Jaena about fentanyl about two months before she died on June 6, 2016, at age 19.
“I said, ‘Please, don’t ever touch that stuff, it will kill you,’” Thompson said. “She said to me, ‘Mom, I would never do that.’ Where is she now?”
When Rossman confronted her son Noah Rossman-Kurland about drug use, the 21-year-old Brock University student told her he’d rather be known as a “druggie” than “that gay guy.”
He died Friday, May 25, 2012. Ann Minors lost her only child, John Carrigan, when an overdose claimed his life on Nov. 13, 2016. He was 27 years old.
Johnston described the women who joined her for Tuesday’s meeting as “sisters, bonded not by blood, but by life’s greatest tragedy.”
“We’ve all lost a beloved child, specifically to opioids — that scourge of society which has devastated our country for years,” she said. “Now with the onset of fentanyl, we are in a massive epidemic with thousands dying every year.”
“It’s too late for us,” Walker Tantardini added. “We’re doing it to help other people. We want to see changes and we don’t know of any other way.”