Health ministers and first responders meet to address overdose crisis
Increase in opioid overdose calls to first responders leads to demand for more harm reduction sites
At Vancouver's Fire Hall No. 2, the number of calls coming in related to opioid overdoses has jumped 30 per cent this year over last.
"Our teams, we can't sustain that," said B.C. Minister of Health Terry Lake.
Lake and federal Health Minister Jane Philpott spoke at a meeting Thursday morning with the first responder community working in the Downtown Eastside.
The meeting, hosted by the City of Vancouver, was convened to address the public health crisis related to the rising number of fentanyl overdose deaths across the province.
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According to the BC Coroners Service, from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30, 2016, more than 555 people died of apparent illicit drug overdoses in the province.
Fentanyl was involved in 61 per cent of those deaths.
More supervised injection sites
One of the questions at the meeting was the issue of Bill C-2, or the Respect for Communities Act.
Advocates argue the bill makes it difficult for community agencies and health authorities to create and maintain harm reduction sites because of its lengthy requirements.
Minister Philpott said the bill will require legislative changes, and repeated her message that the government is working on a plan for the changes to be made.
"I've made it clear to my officials that I do not want any unnecessary barriers to supervised consumption sites in communities that asked for them," she said.
Although two safe injection sites currently exist in Vancouver, one at Insite and a smaller one at the Dr. Peter Centre at St. Paul's Hospital, some community members believe they're not enough.
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Scott Gilbert lives in the Downtown Eastside and is a drug user. He believes Insite needs to increase its capacity, and the government needs to address users' basic human needs as well.
"I can take you on a quick little tour if you'd like through the alleys where (there's) tons of people where there's zero monitoring," said Gilbert.
"There isn't access to toilets, running water, hand sanitizer, electricity, light."
Vancouver city manager Sadhu Johnston said Vancouver Coastal Health and Providence Health Care have submitted applications for additional supervised injection sites in the city.