Region gets $250,000 to boost opioid initiatives

WATERLOO REGION — Provincial funding worth $250,000 will allow the Region of Waterloo to hire 2.5 full-time staff to focus on the opioid crisis.

“So far that’s all the information we have. We’re still waiting for more details,” medical officer of health Dr. Liana Nolan told regional council at a Wednesday meeting.

The money comes out of the new Ontario opioid strategy announced last October by the Minister of Health and Long Term Care, Dr. Eric Hoskins.

Every board of health is getting funding to hire more front-line workers to help communities improve addiction outreach, education and planning while working on early warning and surveillance of opioid overdoses, according to a report presented to council.

Under the strategy, the province also plans to make naloxone — a medication that temporarily reverses an opioid overdose — more available at a variety of places in the community.

“Principally, they want to expand the naloxone distribution and education as well as the surveillance work that we’re doing,” Nolan said.

A letter from the ministry dated June 20 said the region will get up to $250,000 in additional base funding for the new staff positions to support local opioid response initiatives. It will be added to the public health and emergency services budget, with no net levy impact.

Opioid use is a growing concern provincewide. More than 700 people died in Ontario from opioid-related causes in 2014, a 266 per cent increase since 2002.

The dangers of bootleg fentanyl — an illicit, high-dose opioid being added to a variety of substances, often without the user knowing — is particularly concerning, said Coun. Tom Galloway.

Police reported earlier this week that there were 35 suspected overdose deaths in the region since the start of the year — nearly as many as for all of 2015.

“The statistics are staggering,” said Galloway, chair of the Waterloo Regional Police Services Board.

He thanked Nolan for the open letter to the community — issued jointly by public health, police and the school boards — warning families about the rise of opioidrelated deaths in the region, causes and signs of drug use, how to support a child when it comes to drug use, and what to do in an overdose situation.

Earlier this month, regional councillors approved a plan to explore the possibility of supervised injection sites with the aim of reducing overdose deaths and disease transmission, along with public drug use and unsafe needle disposal.