Fentanyl remains the most lethal opioid, especially after the Canada-U.S. border closed and already tainted drugs became worse. (file photo/The Canadian Press)

By Spencer Sterritt

2020 in review

Top Stories of 2020: Overdose crisis in Nanaimo surges as tragic records broken across province

Dec 14, 2020 | 11:56 AM

NANAIMO — COVID-19 wasn’t the only health emergency in B.C. in 2020.

By the end of October, the resurgent overdose epidemic had claimed nearly four times as many lives as the COVID-19 pandemic. Nearly 1,400 lives were lost across the province as stressors from the pandemic pushed people deeper into crisis and drug toxicity rose when the border between Canada and America closed.

In Nanaimo, the number of people fatally overdosing tragically reversed course.

More than 34 people lost their lives to drugs in Nanaimo by the end of October, exceeding the amount in 2019 and nearing the 2018 total.

The number of overdoses was dropping in 2019 as awareness of naloxone kits and overdose prevention sites increased.

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Tragic deaths followed along this trend in January and February of 2020, but quickly rose when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the province and the border.

Interim medical health officer Dr. Sandra Allison told NanaimoNewsNOW it was frustrating to see such a swift response to COVID-19 after years of the overdose crisis.

“You see an entire system shift to respond to the coronavirus pandemic, yet after five years we’re still struggling to bring attention and the resources needed to stop the overdose deaths and deaths from toxic drug poisoning.”

Conversations about the stigma of drug use and the public’s perception of substance users has been at the heart of efforts to ease the epidemic.

Lenae Silva, an outreach worker and educator with the Open Heart Collaborative, told NanaimoNewsNOW the language surrounding substance users needs to change and broaden away from the stereotype of only homeless people suffer from addictions.

She also called for restrictions in a workplace for all types of addictions, from opiates to alcohol, be reworked to foster solutions.

“We can still find ways to provide care for employees without immediately firing them. There’s options and care. The more people can open up and talk about it, the more lives are going to be saved.”

Roughly 80 per cent of fatal overdoses in 2020 occurred inside, with half in private residences, as it has been throughout the entire epidemic.

“These deaths in our community are specifically happening not because addiction exists but because we have a poisoned drug supply,” Jessy Knight, an outreach worker and educator with Open Heart Collaborative, said.

“Access to physicians, access to prescription drugs that will give people the same relief from street drugs, is a responsibility of our health care and our government to provide right now to stop these deaths. Addiction is a long road issue. These deaths can be stopped with legislation guided by lived experience quickly.”

B.C.’s new minister of mental health and addictions, Nanaimo MLA Sheila Malcolmson, told NanaimoNewsNOW pushing for more widespread safe supply of illicit drugs is one of her top priorities.

“If we can’t get leadership from the federal government on this, then we’ll design a made-in-B.C. solution to move ahead and remove the stigma associated with illicit drug use because that could save lives.”

spencer@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @SpencerSterritt