Don’t accept overdose deaths, expert tells panel on opioid crisis
Karen Ward’s appeal was simple: We cannot allow hundreds of British Columbians dying each year from drug overdoses to become the new normal.
“This is not an individual issue,” Ward, a board member of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, told attendees at a Union of B.C. Municipalities conference session on Tuesday. “This is a social and political crisis. The implications are profound, and they affect us all and they implicate us all.”
Ward joined representatives from the B.C. Centre for Disease Control and the Provincial Health Services Authority to talk about the overdose crisis that has killed hundreds of people in B.C. this year and new strategies to reduce overdoses and deaths that have emerged as a result.
B.C. Centre for Disease Control physician epidemiologist Dr. Jane Buxton told attendees that so far this year 876 people have died in B.C. from illicit drug overdoses, and that number could go up to 1,500 by the end of this year. Fentanyl was detected in 81 per cent of overdose fatalities.
Buxton said 82 per cent of those who died were male, and 74 per cent were between the ages of 30 and 59 — 12 were under the age of 18.
“Every individual who has died is a person, is a loved one, is a family member, is somebody who deserves respect and compassion — and the death was unnecessary,” Buxton said. “We should not be seeing overdose deaths as we do now.”
Buxton said naloxone has made a big difference thanks to the proliferation of take home naloxone kits that are used by people other than first responders and frontline workers.
Linda Lupini, executive vicepresident of Provincial Health Services Authority and B.C. Emergency Health Services, said the ambulance service has fielded 36,000 overdose calls in the last 18 months and is trying to innovate to deal with the huge increase.
“There was no way we could absorb this kind of situation with business as usual, resources as usual,” Lupini said.
She said they’ve put naloxone into the hands of first responders, set up a mobile medical unit in the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver and added resources like bike paramedics. Lupini said Emergency Health Services has learned a lot during the crisis and will continue many of the new practices.
Lynn Pelletier, vice-president of B.C. Mental Health and Substance Use Services, said there are no easy fixes when it comes to treatment. There are some good existing services and some coming down the pike, such as a treatment centre on the Riverview grounds in Coquitlam, but we can do a better job of providing integrated services people can access quickly and easily.
“I think people are crying out for good services that are co-ordinated and accessible and that’s the crux of what we need to work on together,” Pelletier said.
Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Judy Darcy was also at the session. She said harm reduction works and B.C. is a leader in that area, but more needs to be done on the treatment side, which is part of her mandate.
“Our treatment and recovery programs are far from adequate. They’re fragmented, they’re uncoordinated, there’s huge gaps and access to care often depends on the ability to pay, and that’s wrong,” she said.