By The Canadian Press

Emergency Response Centre set up in B.C. to combat overdose deaths

Dec 1, 2017 | 4:25 PM

VANCOUVER — British Columbia has established a command centre to provide a co-ordinated response to a provincial overdose crisis in an effort to help people access services that could save their lives.

Mental Health and Addictions Minister Judy Darcy says staff at the Overdose Emergency Response Centre at Vancouver General Hospital will work with five new regional response and community action teams to deliver tailored services.

Darcy says that could mean linking people who end up at emergency departments with overdose prevention sites, setting them up with housing or providing culturally appropriate services for those who are Indigenous.

The minister says she is working with various mayors to determine what services their communities need, such as distribution of naloxone, a drug that reverses overdoses.

Dr. Patricia Daly, chief medical health officer for Vancouver Coastal Health, will lead the centre and says data will be collected regularly so health experts are not waiting for statistics that are released every few months by the coroners service.

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John and Jennifer Hedican say they were on their own in trying to get their son Ryan help before he died in April from fentanyl-laced heroin and they’re hoping the centre will provide others the resources they didn’t get.

The Canadian Press