LOST LOVED ONES
Victims remembered, experiences shared at Gage Park event
Robb Smith remembers a friend at a memorial tree set up at an event Thursday to honour those who died from overdoses. The City of Hamilton held an awareness event in Gage Park for overdose deaths and to focus on drug addiction treatment.
Don’t use alone. Get a naloxone kit. Overdose prevention sites save lives.
These are some of the thoughts that roll off the tongue of Lloyd Bryer as he addresses a crowd from the Gage Park band shell gathered for Overdose Awareness Day.
But one observation resounds on a deeply personal level that’s not immediately obvious.
“It’s not somebody else’s problem. It’s our problem.”
Once offstage, the 65-year-old explains that foremost on his mind is his son, who is struggling with a serious opioid problem.
In fact, just a few hours before his address at the Thursday afternoon event, his 33-year-old son was taken by ambulance to Hamilton General Hospital.
“His feet were blown up,” said Bryer.
It’s a symptom of endocarditis, which is an infection of the heart valves that can be brought on by intravenous drug use. Bacteria are introduced into the blood stream and break down tissue, block vessels and form clots.
Bryer, a stout man with silver facial hair and bald scalp, wipes tears from his eyes when he explains how he plans to visit his son later.
“I’m not the tough guy I make myself out to be.”
The nine or so years that his son has been using hard street drugs, like purple heroin, a deadly mix that includes fentanyl, have been trying.
“It’s the killer stuff.” Bryer is full of praise for the medical team that has operated on his son’s ventricle. But once he’s discharged from hospital, he uses again.
“My hope is to get him into some sort of long-term treatment.”
But the retiree feels his hands are tied: the decision to get help has to come from his son. “Recovery is an inside job.” Bryer should know. He himself struggled with addiction for years — methamphetamine.
“I have my substance use disorder in check,” he says, making a point of not using the term “clean,” which implies addiction is “dirty.” He explains his son is a strong motivating factor.
“If I’m going to lead, I’m going to lead by example,” Bryer says.
Thursday, the volunteer with public health was among roughly 25 organizations and service providers with information booths set up at Gage Park for Overdose Prevention Day.
Also among the crowd were friends and families of loved ones who have fallen victim to an ongoing opioid overdose crisis in Hamilton. Some wrote the names of those they wished to honour on small wooden disks and hung them on a memorial tree.
In Hamilton, 122 people died from overdoses last year. About 75 per cent were caused by fentanyl, said Margot Corbin of the city’s public health department.
“And in Canada, as a whole, we lost one life every two hours.”
In Hamilton, 8,830 naloxone doses distributed via public health and partners have revived 916 lives, Corbin said.
Dr. Ninh Tran, Hamilton’s associate medical officer of health, said the city and its partners want to reduce the addiction stigma that can prevent people from seeking help.
He suggested more action and “novel approaches” are needed to stem the relentless tide of overdoses.
“Despite our best efforts, we had 122 deaths last year, and that was up from 88 the year before.”
Innovative initiatives such as providing people with a safe drug supply and more consumption and treatment services (CTS) are key, he said. The city’s public health department has applied to the province for a CTS site, where people can use illicit drugs under medical supervision.
Finding a location, however, has been a stumbling block in submitting the application. If successful, the initiative would be the second site in Hamilton offering such services. In June 2018, an overdose prevention site opened at Hamilton Urban Core Community Health Centre.
A recent report by the Ontario Drug Policy Research Network of St. Michael’s Hospital and Chief Coroner of Ontario painted a complex portrait of the opioid crisis.
Of 1,337 opioid-related deaths in Ontario, between July 2017 and June 2018, nearly three in four were among males, and just over half were for people between the ages of 25 and 44. Among accidental deaths (1,209), 73.6 per cent involved people who lived in a private dwelling, while 9.8 per cent were among those experiencing homelessness.
The report also found 31.8 per cent of deaths occurred in neighbourhoods with “the highest material deprivation (measure of inability to attain basic resources and services).”
Surveying the small crowd compared to the enormity of the crisis, Bryer said the issue still doesn’t have enough attention.
“Judging by the empty seats, a lot of people still think it’s other people’s problem, and there’s still stigma attached to it.”