Moms Stop the Harm advocates and supporters march to the B.C. Ministry of Health building where pictures of loved ones hang on display during the sixth anniversary to mark the public health emergency of the declaration due to the significant increase in opioid-related overdose, in Victoria, on April 14, 2022. (Photo via Chad Hipolito/The Canadian Press)
A Medical Health Officer for Interior Health says a “surprisingly” high number of individuals who overdosed in the region, ended up in the Emergency Department, before their death.
Dr. Carol Fenton says she reviewed medical charts available for folks that die from the toxic drug supply, as part of a report, to understand improvement opportunities when it comes to helping those struggling with addiction.
“The data just gives us an idea of what happened and so it wasn’t everybody but a surprisingly high proportion of folks who did die from toxic drugs were seen in the emergency department in the months and weeks prior to their death.”
Fenton says there were a variety of reasons those individuals went in to see a doctor in the ER.
“Some proportion was related to substance use, but a significant proportion were also unrelated. Some were injuries, some were pain control and some were other things.”
While the research is still in its early stages, Fenton says the goal is to hopefully develop a screening process to detect whether or not people are accessing the toxic drug supply.
“We do know that a proportion of those people do have perhaps an addiction or a use disorder, but we also know that a large proportion of those don’t and so we need to make sure that when we’re designing interventions to save people from the toxic, unregulated supply, we aren’t limiting ourselves to people with addiction or substance use disorder because then we’re missing a lot of people who are in danger.”
She suggests the screening process could help prevent the number of overdoses seen in the province.
