Pubdate: Fri, 29 Aug 2014
Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON)
Copyright: 2014 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/letters.html
Website: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/326
Author: Samantha Wright Allen
Page: A2

HEALTH-CARE WORKERS STRIVE TO PREVENT DRUG OVERDOSES

The man's face was purple. The whites of his eyes stared out, the 
pupils rolled back into his head. He was sweating profusely, his 
tongue hanging from his mouth.

When Sean LeBlanc opened the door to the rooming house hallway last 
summer, it was clear to the former addict what was happening.

"It was an opiate overdose," he said. "I'd seen it before."

LeBlanc sprang into action. He grabbed a naloxone kit - a device 
similar to an EpiPen - and injected the life-saving antidote into his 
friend's shoulder.

It took less than 15 seconds for LeBlanc to empty the tiny vial and 
remove the retractable safety needle.

"Thanks to the naloxone training I could bring him back."

He's one of 93 people who have gone through Ottawa Public Health's 
Peer Overdose Prevention Program (POPP) - one of the free 
harm-reduction strategies available in the capital. It launched two 
years ago to coincide with the annual International Overdose 
Awareness Day, marked in Ottawa Friday at the Human Rights Monument 
at 11:30 a.m.

Toronto is the only other city in the province to have a similar 
program. Less than a decade before, LeBlanc woke up chained to a bed, 
himself a survivor of a crack overdose, thanks to some quick thinking 
of friends.

"It was terrifying. It really put things in perspective for me," said 
the 40-year-old.

LeBlanc turned to drugs as a 23-year-old university student when his 
partner died. First it was alcohol, then dilaudid, and then at one 
party someone had the syringes and LeBlanc was hooked. "The opiates 
dulled all the pain." He was homeless at one point, shoplifting to 
support his habit. He even spent time in jail.

"I was just lucky I survived my addiction," LeBlanc said, adding that 
it wasn't until the death of a best friend three years ago that he got clean.

He said his friend's death was classified as respiratory failure, and 
while medically accurate, it doesn't paint a true picture of the problem.

On average, 40 people in Ottawa die annually due to overdose; 
overdoses also result in about 115 hospitalizations, according to 
2014 Ottawa Public Health figures.

"I see so much lost potential," said LeBlanc, who founded the Drug 
User Advocacy League in 2010 to improve safety and education around 
drug consumption. "These are really intelligent, lovely people, who 
are never able to recover from that mistake."

For Wendy Muckle, executive director of Ottawa Inner City Health, 
treatment involves a variety of strategies.

"The thing with overdose prevention is that there's no one thing 
that's the silver bullet that's going to keep everybody safe," said 
Muckle, whose organization provides care for homeless people in 
Ottawa who are often struggling with both mental illness and 
addiction and are at high risk for drug use and overdose.

"You have to have different kinds of strategies that target different 
populations."

These should include safe injection sites, she said, but also the 
naloxone kits - her organization uses about one each month - as well 
as education about safer drug options, treatment, and needle exchange.

It's key to try to dissuade use of injection drugs, she said, which 
carry greater risk of hepatitis C and HIV. Ottawa Public Health has 
wide estimates for the number of people in Ottawa using needles - at 
least 1,200 and perhaps as many as 5,600, according to most recent numbers.

Those numbers are supported by a provincial study that found 
opioid-related deaths exploded by 242 per cent between 1991 and 2010. 
The biggest jump was among young adults aged 25 to 34: In 2010, 
opioids were responsible for 12 per cent of all deaths, up from three 
per cent of all deaths in 1992. In 2012, Ontario had the highest rate 
of prescription narcotic use in Canada.

It was only recently that the province launched a strategy to better 
track the problem, said Rob Boyd, who has helped to organize the 
awareness day for the past four years.

Though Ottawa is still a crack town, Boyd says, he's seen a rise in 
opioid use - often heroine, morphine, oxycodone or fentanyl - in the 
past five to 10 years.

"Suddenly overdose has become a much bigger issue than it has in the 
past," said Boyd, who works for Sandy Hill Community Health Centre, 
which also just finished training its staff how to administer naloxone.

Boyd said the common image of those at risk for overdose doesn't fly.

"If you are prescribed opiates, you are at risk of an opiate 
overdose," Boyd said, adding that often those using opioids - such as 
parents and high school students - can be hard to reach.

"There's so much misinformation and so much stigma associated with 
substance abuse, it becomes a real challenge getting the correct 
information to people who need it."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom