Dollars coming in attempt to tackle opioid crisis

By Joel Wittnebel/The Oshawa Express

A sweeping multi-million dollar investment to battle the ongoing opioid crisis by the province of Ontario will go a long way in fighting a battle that has been ravaging communities across Canada, addiction specialists say.

The $222 million investment over the next three years was announced on Aug. 29, and for Paul McGary, the director of the Pinewood Centre, a branch of Lakeridge Health focused on treating mental health and addictions, the investment is remarkable, not like any that has been seen in recent years.

“We haven’t seen this level of investment into a single substance and addiction related issue in probably a couple decades,” McGary says. “So for us this is very well received.”

The funds, announced by Eric Hoskins, the Minister of Health and Long-Term Care on Aug. 29, will go toward a wide array of programs and will also add additional frontline workers across the province. The money will also go to expanding the supply of naloxone, expanding Rapid Access Addiction Medicine Clinics across Ontario and looking at expanding harm-reduction services such as needle exchange programs and supervised injection sites.

Additionally, the province will be partnering with the Centre of Addiction and Mental Health to expand addictions treatment; will be working with the Ontario College of Family Physicians to teach proper prescribing methods for opioids along with working alongside Indigenous communities to enhance appropriate mental health and wellness programs and funding for new or expanded Indigenous Mental Health and Addictions Treatment and Healing Centres.

It’s this wide-reaching approach that McGary thinks will have the biggest impact with efforts being placed all along the spectrum of care.

“It’s multi-faceted and multi-pronged, so I think that is where we tend to see a good potential for system-level impacts versus it just being a single focus,” he says.

And while it may be too early to know how the dollars will trickle down to the Pinewood Centre, McGary says they will work with the Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) to ensure they are prepared when the plan is put in place.

Locally, the incidents of opioid related overdoses and the influx of dangerous drugs like fentanyl have been increasing steadily in recent years.

In fact, recent reports citing Health Canada numbers say that between 2015 and 2016, the amount of street drugs found to be laced with the deadly additives like fentanyl have increased by as much as 40 per cent.

“The devastating impact of opioid use disorder and overdose has reached every community in Ontario, and crosses all demographics,” Hoskins says. “Our government has been working closely with partners across the province to combat this urgent issue for more than a year, and we are continuing to strengthen our strategy and increase harm reduction, addiction treatment and other supports. It is through this collaborative, evidence-based and comprehensive approach that we will be able to effectively address this crisis and save lives.”

The most recent data from the Chief Coroner’s Office of Ontario shows that fentanyl has been the most deadly opioid since 2014, jumping from 86 deaths in 2010 where “the drug was felt to be a direct contributor to the death” to 162 in 2015.

“From a treatment perspective, on an anecdotal basis, we continue to hear through our staff and through our clients of individuals who have overdosed,” McGary says.

In fact, most recently, eight overdoses in Durham Region in a span of three days in June were suspected to be connected to a batch of cocaine laced with fentanyl.

“That is the way that overdoses tend to go, it tends to be patch specific,” McGary says. “So, I think there’s more than enough evidence that locally we are no different. I don’t know that we can say we’re any worse, but we’re certainly no different.”