A pop-up overdose-prevention site has again been erected outside Nanaimo Regional General Hospital, as addictions doctors continue to pressure Island Health to deliver on planned pilot sites at three Island hospitals.
Family doctors specializing in addictions medicine set up similar pop-up sites outside hospitals in Nanaimo and Victoria last month to raise awareness of the lack of such services, which they say can save lives of patients who might otherwise be sent off site to use drugs and end up dying alone.
Dr. Jess Wilder, a family physician leading Nanaimo Regional General Hospital’s addictions medicine team, was back at it on Sunday, running the pop-up with support from the same team of doctors, nurses, paramedics, physiotherapists, Vancouver Island University students and support workers.
She said Tuesday that the pop-up service will continue to be provided until a funded, permanent service is in place. The next one is planned for Dec. 28, with more dates in January.
“We all work full-time jobs, so finding days where enough of us can give up a day off to run the service is a challenge, but we are committed to continuing to show up for our hospital patients and community members.”
Wilder and Victoria colleague Dr. Ryan Herriot maintain they have waited long enough for promised overdose-prevention sites for patients at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital, Royal Jubilee Hospital and North Island Hospitals’ Campbell River and District facility.
Island Health’s plan this year was to set up pilot sites at the three hospitals. The outdoor tents for supervised drug consumption for patients were to be open seven days a week, seven hours a day, staffed by five new staff members, including a manager, co-ordinator and three peer-support workers.
But the government scuttled the plan in the spring, ahead of the provincial election, after nurses and patients complained of open drug use or drug possession by patients in hospital rooms and halls.
The province reiterated that it has a zero-tolerance for smoking in hospitals and hit the pause button on both community and hospital-based overdose-prevention sites across sa国际传媒 while it established minimum service standards.
The goal is to establish operational and facility requirements for all provincially funded, fixed and mobile, overdose-prevention services in sa国际传媒, the ministry said last month, suggesting that once its review is completed, future sites could be considered where appropriate, including in hospitals.
But the group calling itself Doctors for Safer Drug Policy says the wait has been too long. It wants new Health Minister Josie Osborne to direct health authorities to immediately implement hospital-based overdose-prevention sites.
In the month since Osborne was sworn in, “210 British Colombians have died preventable deaths,” said Wilder, adding the toxic-drug-overdose crisis is the biggest health crisis the province is facing.
Wilder said the minister has not responded to the addictions medicine physicians’ calls to meet.
The physician group says it will continue to escalate the issue both provincially and nationally until it has the tools it needs to save lives.
“We currently have 20 sites across sa国际传媒 planning to replicate our actions at their own hospitals, in response to failure of their governments to act,” said Wilder.
The sa国际传媒 Nurses’ Union has said it is in favour of harm-reduction approaches to reduce toxic drug overdose deaths in and around hospitals, but it has slammed health authorities for failing in the past to do it in a way that kept nursing staff safe.
The Island Health planning document for three hospital-based outdoor pilot sites suggested that in addition to gowns and gloves, personal protection equipment for the sites would include air-purifying respirators.
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