This week’s provincial budget included $5 million to support the Joint Task Force on Overdose Response. B.C. is also getting $10 million in federal funding announced last week as part of a nationwide initiative to combat the growing opioid crisis.
On the Sunshine Coast, officials with Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) say the situation here has stabilized somewhat since a spike in overdoses and overdose deaths late last year and early this year.
Medical health officer Dr. Paul Martiquet said there hasn’t been an opioid overdose death on the Sunshine Coast since the Christmas - New Year period. He also said that VCH and the Ministry of Health recognize there’s still a lot of work to do when it comes to offering opportunities for people to get off opioids and preventing addiction in the first place.
The latest statistics from VCH show that since the heath authority started tracking OD cases at Sechelt Hospital and the other rural hospitals in Bella Coola, Bella Bella and Powell River in June 2016, there have been 36 ODs involving opioids and other illicit drugs. The majority – 61 per cent – were at Sechelt Hospital.
VCH has distributed 32 Naloxone kits and trained 70 people to use them so far this year.
“We have been successful in getting Naloxone kits to those who need them, and we have stationed the kits in important areas,” Martiquet said. “Emergency [at Sechelt Hospital], the Sechelt Nation Health Centre has them, the Gibsons Health Unit has them. We have not distributed them to the school district. We have not, up until now, had any reason to be concerned that the school age population is at risk [of opioid overdoses].”
Naloxone kits are also available through the addictions and mental health unit at Sechelt Hospital.
