Life expectancy gap ‘unacceptable’
Council, mayor Briefed on impact of overdose epidemic on the DTES
Residents of Vancouver neighbourhoods only a few kilometres apart have dramatically different life expectancies — and the gap is widening.
The grim statistics were part of an update on Vancouver’s drug overdose epidemic presented Tuesday to the new mayor and council. A short time later, they unanimously voted in one of their first orders of business to call on the B.C. government for more money for crisis response.
Men in the Downtown Eastside have life expectancies that are, on average, 15 years shorter than their fellow Vancouverites across town, Vancouver Coastal Health chief medical health officer Patricia Daly told council during its first regular meeting after being sworn in last week.
“The drop in life expectancy for men in the Downtown Eastside has been dramatic in the last two years,” Daly said.
“Men in the Downtown Eastside have a life expectancy of less than 70 years. Whereas on the west side of Vancouver it’s about 85 years of age. That’s a 15-year difference in life expectancy within neighbourhoods that are only a few kilometres apart.
“This is absolutely unacceptable and a significant cause for concern and it has to do with the rise in overdose deaths.”
The Downtown Eastside has been the centre of an overdose crisis that has spread across the city, the province and the rest of the country.
But despite the grim picture painted by the death statistics, Daly also told council that overdose prevention sites and takehome naloxone kits are saving lives.
The B.C. Centre for Disease Control estimates such interventions have prevented thousands of deaths over the last two years and without them the death toll could have been 21/2 times higher.
But the crisis persists as the newest figures in Tuesday ’s council update showed. This year, 312 people have died from suspected overdoses in the city of Vancouver, similar to the number of confirmed fatal overdoses at this point last year.
Daly cited a report last month from Canada’s chief public health officer that said Canadian life expectancies are on the rise, but they have dropped in B.C. because of opioid overdoses.
She also presented figures from the B.C. Coroners Service tracking unnatural deaths in the province. In 2010, drug overdoses were responsible for about half as many deaths as motor vehicle accidents and about a third of the number of those by suicide. But drug deaths began to soar in 2015. Last year, drug overdoses accounted for more deaths than suicides, homicides and motor vehicle accidents combined.
During Tuesday’s meeting, the new council, made up of representatives from four different parties and Independent Mayor Kennedy Stewart, voted unanimously to call on the province for funding to match a property tax increase, approved two years ago by the previous council, to raise funds for overdose crisis response. More funds are required. We do have a very finite property tax base here in the city and we can’t shoulder it all ourselves.
In December 2016, Vancouver’s previous mayor and council approved a 0.5 per cent property tax increase, expected to raise an additional $3.5 million for battling the overdose crisis. City staff estimated the tax hike would mean an increase for median homeowners of between $4 and $11 a year.
That 2016 tax hike was opposed by NPA councillors, including current Coun. Melissa De Genova, who said it would make the city less affordable and criticized the way it was proposed at the last minute without adequate consultation. At the time, De Genova urged the city to press senior governments for crisis response funding.
On Tuesday, De Genova, one of only two returning councillors, introduced a motion asking the mayor write to the premier and the minister of addictions to request “urgent funding from the provincial government in the amount of the 0.5 per cent tax increase approved in 2016” to help the city fund overdose crisis response.
“What I’m hearing from Dr. Daly as well as from our staff is that it’s still not enough, that we’re not able to do enough with the money that we have,” De Genova told council. “So any money coming from senior levels of government would be welcomed.”
Stewart, who seconded De Genova’s motion, told reporters: “I do think more funds are required. We do have a very finite property tax base here in the city and we can’t shoulder it all ourselves. So I think it’s totally prudent to go forward and ask for additional funding.”
The minister of mental health and addictions, Judy Darcy, said in an emailed statement that her ministry is working with municipalities to find more money “to stem the tide of this achingly long emergency.”