DO NOT BLAME ADDICTS BY THE OPIOIDS IN ONTARIO CRISIS. THE GUILTY ARE THE POLITICIANS.
Wynne pledges help for opioid crisis
‘More
needs to be done,’ premier says after meeting doctors, front-line workers
Toronto Star: ROB FERGUSON QUEEN’S
PARK BUREAU
Drug users and front-line workers in
the opioid crisis can expect “significant” new life-saving help soon from the
province, Premier Kathleen Wynne said after meeting with doctors Monday.
The pledge came as physicians and
harm-reduction workers came to the front steps of Queen’s Park with an open
letter to Wynne demanding she declare an emergency over a rising number of
overdoses, as British Columbia did last year.
They did not get the declaration
sought under the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act, but there was
an acknowledgment from the premier of the “devastating impacts” of opioid
addiction and overdoses.
Government
Motto: “In the Best Interest of Children”
“We agreed that what’s happening in
Ontario is a public health crisis,” Wynne said in a statement released after
the impromptu one-hour meeting that lasted twice as long as anticipated.
“That’s why I strongly reaffirmed
our government’s commitment to combat this crisis with additional resources . .
. Our government will work more closely with people living with addictions,
their family members, front-line workers and volunteers,” the premier added.
In June, the province gave local
health agencies $15 million to hire staff and hand out naloxone kits, which are
used to revive drug users from overdoses until they can get more thorough
hospital treatment.
“But it is clear that more needs to
be done,” Wynne said, promising “significant additional resources and
supports.”
Health Minister Eric Hoskins is
slated to make an announcement Tuesday at St. Michael’s Hospital.
The medical professionals are
seeking increased funding to pay for harm-reduction staff now working as
volunteers, more supervised injection sites, more treatment beds and testing
street drugs before users take them, psychiatrist Michaela Beder said.
“We’re looking for an improved
regulatory environment, where sites can open up exactly where people need them,
so overdoses can be prevented,” she told reporters.
Golden
Years!!!
Canadian
Seniors being Drugged and Prescribed Risky Meds
“The one thing that the premier did
make explicit was that any funding announcement would make the funds clearly
available faster and that they would go to where they need to go, quickly,”
added Dr. Alexander Caudarella, an addictions specialist in Toronto.
Either alone or combined with other
drugs, opioids were responsible for about one-third of accidental deaths in
Toronto in 2015, a public health report from the city has found.
Increasingly, fentanyl has been
blamed for overdoses, prompting police to issue safety alerts. A batch of the
powerful drug killed four people and caused 20 overdoses during a three-day
period in July.
Leigh Chapman, a registered nurse
and one of the organizers of an unsanctioned pop-up injection site at Moss Park
in Toronto, said it’s become clear that a stronger response to opioid deaths is
needed.
She said the pop-up site had 15 people on its first night and that
number doubled two weeks later.
“I’m pleased that there’s a lot of
advocacy for an emergency declaration. It’s too little too late for a lot of
people, including my brother,” said Chapman, whose brother Brad died of a
suspected fentanyl overdose in 2015.
“These people are abandoned by the
system and they have these unmet needs.
“This is not normal. This doesn’t
happen for any health-care issue, where people take matters into their own
hands in this kind of way.
“I think an emergency declaration
would be a signal to them that they belong in the health-care system.”
Opposition parties said the
government’s response has been too slow. New Democrat MPP France Gélinas called
for an emergency declaration to increase funding, because “front-line workers .
. . are struggling without the resources they need.” With files from Sammy Hudes
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