The government of Ontario is set to make an announcement about funding and the drug crisis Tuesday afternoon. The news comes hours after the premier met with a group of health care and harm-reduction workers who are pushing for the province to designate Ontario’s opioid problem as an emergency situation.
More than 700 hundred harm reduction workers and health care professionals called for officials to declare a provincial emergency in response to a “disturbing” spike in opioid overdoses.
The request was made in an open letter released Monday by doctors, nurses, frontline harm-reduction workers and academics across the province who say they feel “abandoned” by the province.
In the letter, which is addressed to Premier Kathleen Wynne and her cabinet, the group calls attention to a “disturbing” and “sustained” increase in non-fatal and fatal overdoses in the province.
“As healthcare providers and public health officials, we lament the insufficient urgency and breadth of our response to harm reduction workers’ alerts and are very concerned about the lack of clear, decisive, effective and evidence-based action by the Province,” the letter reads.
“A declaration of an emergency will allow harm reduction workers, public health, primary care, addictions medicine, psychiatry and internal medicine teams to develop safe, effective and equitable responses to this emergency.”
The letter says “limited resources” and “poor and outdated data” has prevented healthcare workers from providing “swift, safe, and effective program developments.”
The government responded to the letter on Monday afternoon saying an announcement will be made on Tuesday at 1 p.m. by Ontario’s Health Minister Dr. Eric Hoskins who will be joined by Chief Medical Officer of Health and Provincial Overdose Coordinator Dr. David Williams
Zoe Dodd, a frontline harm reduction worker in the city, told reporters Monday that the situation at pop-up injection sites across the province – including the one in Toronto’s Moss Park – has become “desperate.”
“We cannot bring the people we love back. To those people who are family, friends, members who have lost people, I feel incredibly sorry for your losses. It is hard to deal with the grief that we feel,” Dodd said, holding back tears.
“It’s hard to manage what’s going on and we’re trying our best but it is time that the government step up and do something. We can’t afford to lose any more people and we’re losing people at an alarming rate.”
According to recent data, in the first six months of 2016, 412 Ontarians died of opioid overdoses, which is up more than 10 per cent from the previous year.
Toronto Public Health sets up interim supervised injection site set-up
In addition to the Moss Park site, an interim supervised injection site has been set up at the Toronto Public Health building on Victoria Street to deal with the opioid crisis. The temporary location is operating as a stop-gap measure until construction is complete on three permanent facilities in the city.
Thirty-three people visited the Moss Park location on Sunday alone, Dodd said, and that number is increasing every day as workers “gain trust” with people.
If an emergency were declared, harm reduction workers say it could lead to additional funding for front-line staff and establishing more overdose prevention sites.
“We’re leaving the responsibility of this crisis to people’s family and friends, and people who use drugs, to save each other’s lives and it is not okay,” Dr. Alex Caudarella, a local addiction physician, said while presenting the letter Monday.
“We do not have the resources on the ground to deal with the crisis and we need progressive action now and we need that from this government.”
Dodd said the declaration would be “symbolic” to those fighting the crisis and those dealing with addition.
“This would send a crucial message to survivors, families and communities affected by this epidemic that their lives are respected as having equal value to that of all people living in Ontario and that the government is acting on evidence-based policy and learning from the experience in British Columbia to protect their lives,” the letter says.
The group noted in their letter that British Columbia has set a precedent with respect to the declaration of an emergency, adding that there is “widespread support” for it among experts.
“We call on you and your government today to exercise your power in the interest of an effective and moral response to this growing public health emergency before more lives are unnecessarily lost,” the letter concluded.
Ontario’s Health Minister Eric Hoskins previously said that an opioid addiction and overdose strategy that launched last year has provided money for new addiction and mental health workers and more than 6,500 naloxone kits.
His office also said additional support will be provided as part of the opioid strategy.
Dodd said she hopes the government will provide more than just kits if the crisis is in fact declared a provincial emergency. She said harm reduction has been underfunded for years but due to slow collection and release of current data, the group can’t accurately estimate how much funding is needed.
“The kits are not enough. We can give out all the naloxone kits we want, but we need overdose prevention and education workers. We need access to testing drugs…Those kits are important, naloxone is important, but it’s only one small feature to it,” she said.
“We can’t bring people back and I don’t know what dollars are attached to that but we need millions and I know that we need it on the ground. We could really stop what’s happening now if we had those resources if we worked together.”
Meeting held with premier
Harm reduction workers delivered the open letter to Queen’s Park Monday morning and met with the premier later in the afternoon to discuss the situation.
While Wynne did not agree to declare a provincial emergency at the meeting, healthcare professionals who spoke with the premier said she did promise to announce more funding in the next few days.
It was later stated that the announcement Wynne was referring to would be the one made by Hoskins and Williams on Tuesday afternoon.
"I think there’s two issues really we’re concerned about. One is the funding. The second is whether there will be a way to increase the number of overdose prevention sites that are within the province," Dr. Michaela Beder told CP24 following the meeting on Monday afternoon.
"We’ve seen from the site at Moss Park that they can be set up very quickly, very professionally and we are looking forward to seeing what happens."
With files from The Canadian Press
