By Greg Fry

BC Coroners Service probes overdose deaths in new report

Sep 27, 2018 | 3:16 PM

VICTORIA — A new BC Coroners Service report has delved a lot deeper into the reasons for illicit drug overdose deaths in 2016 and 2017.

The 34-page report, entitled Illicit Drug Overdose Deaths in BC: Findings of Coroners’ Investigations, probed 872 completed illicit drug overdose deaths.

Some of the findings included:

• More than half of the decedents had reported a clinical mental health diagnosis or showed evidence of a mental health disorder;
• About four in every five decedents had contact with health services in the year preceding their deaths;
• More than two-thirds used drugs alone;
• About one in every four deaths involved people, primarily males, working in trades or transport;
• 45 per cent of decedents had reported pain-related issues;
• 44 per cent of decedents were employed and 51 per cent unemployed.

In addition to that, the report also confirmed findings the coroners service already knew, including that four in every five decedents were male, about two-thirds lived in private residences and fentanyl was detected in just over three in every four deaths.

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Spokesperson Andy Watson calls the report “crucially important” as they continue to look for solutions to this crisis.

“A crisis that took over 1,400 lives in 2017 and almost a 1,000 lives the first eight months of 2018. Finding new ways of combating this crisis.”

He notes there was a glimmer of hope in the drug overdose numbers for August, with 98 suspected drug deaths, a 27 per cent decrease from July and also a 20 per cent decrease compared to August 2017.

But despite the optimism, Watson says he would take three to four consecutive months of decreased deaths to signify a trend.

Through August in Kamloops, there were 25 illicit overdose drug deaths, compared to 38 in all of 2017.