Health-care providers held a rally Wednesday afternoon outside a federal opioid symposium, calling on the provincial government to reverse its decision to halt the opening of three overdose prevention sites in Toronto.
About 850 health-care providers in Ontario have signed an open letter calling on the provincial government to expand funding for overdose prevention sites and supervised consumption services.
The letter also asks that the government to allow the three overdose prevention sites already approved to open, to approve applications for new sites and to “engage in meaningful consultations with people who use drugs, front-line workers, and healthcare providers on additional strategies to combat the current opioid overdose crisis.”
“Ontario’s health care providers will not idly stand by as decisions are made that put people’s lives at risk. The evidence exists. We need action,” said Melanie Spence, a registered nurse who works at a Supervised Consumption Service in Toronto, in a news release.
Health Minister Christine Elliott announced last month that the provincial government was halting the opening of three temporary overdose prevention sites in Toronto until a review is conducted to determine if the facilities should continue to operate.
"I just want to make sure that when public funds are being expended that supervised injection sites are going to serve their purpose, they are going to save lives, and they are going to help people get into rehab," she said back in August.
Dozens of people showed up at the rally holding a large banner that said “we grieve thousands.”
“We need the province to acknowledge that we are in the middle of a crisis. We are in a crisis,” Spence told CP24 during the rally. “As a nurse who works at one of these sites, all of us, health-care providers, we are in this work because we want to help people and in this case we want to help save people’s lives.”
“And if the government is going to get in the way of that work, we actually need to stand up and say that that’s not acceptable and that we need that to change,” she said.
The health-care workers were hoping to hand deliver the open letter to the health minister or Ontario Premier Doug Ford at the symposium, but neither were in attendance. Spencer said that the symposium was invitation-only and that there “seems to be a heavy focus on enforcement.”
The group is planning on delivering the letter to the health minister or the premier at Queen’s Park if they do not attend the two-day symposium.
Toronto Public Health says that 303 people died in the city as a result of an opioid overdose in 2017.
More than 1,200 people have died in Ontario.
