By Ashley Legassic / Jill Sperling

Kamloops council presses Interior Health officials on opioid crisis

Apr 9, 2019 | 5:21 PM

KAMLOOPS — It’s a problem that doesn’t seem to be going away — the opioid crisis continues to take the lives of Kamloops residents year after year.

“I don’t apologize for my passion on this matter because if anyone in the front row had come to us with a death from a swimming pool or a death from a hockey rink or a death from a crosswalk we would be all over it,” Kamloops Mayor Ken Christian told Interior Health officials at Tuesday’s council meeting. “And yet you come every year with 50 deaths in our population. That is just of grave concern to myself and to our council.”

Mayor and council were provided with an overview of addictions treatment programs in Kamloops and the B.C. Interior, as requested by Christian. Interior Health Medical Health Officer Dr. Kamran Golmohammadi highlighted a number of services.

“One of the centres of conversations and discussion is the concept of harm reduction,” Golmohammadi said.

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Golmohammadi reported that 48 people died from overdose in Kamloops last year, and that Interior Health has the third-highest rate of overdose deaths per capita. The mayor and councillors expressed concern over the growing numbers.

“While you’ve shown a number of interventions that you have in place, I would be feeling better if those interventions were bending the curve. But it’s pretty clear to us that they’re not,” Christian said.

“When you hand out these needles you’re not helping that individual at all,” Coun. Bill Sarai said. “You’re sending them back out into our community to go buy drugs illegally, to shoot up and cause havoc in our city.

Deborah Morris, administrator for mental health and substance use with Interior Health West, says every interaction with a person with a substance use addiction is an opportunity.

“We know that we have very finite windows, we know that we have people that have been using for many, many years that don’t, as I said earlier, engage with our traditional services,” Morris said. “Every chance we have in terms of an interaction with that individual is an opportunity for us to plant a seed.” 

Golmohammadi says it’s difficult to pinpoint how much of an impact the available services have had.

“Sometimes it is not that easy that you can prove or suggest that if this program was not in place — what would have been the scenario? But what we know from our experience observing and working with other communities and exchanging ideas, we feel that there’s a lot of potential.”

78 per cent of people who fatally overdose in B.C. are men, and 66 per cent of overdoses occur in private residences. Golmohammadi says stigma needs to be removed in order for people to feel comfortable about seeking the services available in the community.

“What is most important for us to understand and support these people to prevent this crisis and curb this burden or this crisis is the issue of the stigma that we mentioned. We have to know and understand that substance use and mental health problems (are) no different than any other medical condition.”