Sixty pairs of shoes covered the platform of the Human Rights Memorial on Elgin Street in Ottawa on Aug. 31 for “Opioid Overdose Awareness Day,” to acknowledge the 60 lives that have been lost in Ottawa so far in 2018 to overdoses.
Rob Boyd, director of the Oasis program at the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre (SHCHC), said the centre has been placing the pairs of shoes at the memorial for about eight years.
“It’s a very powerful and provocative image, and really helps people to understand the loss,” he said. “When you just talk about numbers, people can get lost, but when you see the empty shoes, and we’re here standing for them then I think it will help people engage with the issue.”
Several people recounted their personal struggles with opioid addictions, including Jennifer Bigelow. She said she was an addict for 35 years, and overdosed four times during that period.
Bigelow said getting involved doing peer work with organizations, such as the Shepherds of Good Hope, helped her recover.
“I was one of those people overdosing on the sidewalks or in crack houses, and I wanted a different life. I wanted a better life, but I had a crappy childhood, and didn’t really have any of the tools to help me,” she said. “In 2013, I was going through a bad time, and went through a lot of therapy. But through that I was able to meet a lot of people who accepted me, and I started peer work; through the peer work, I was able to help hundreds of people, and the drugs became less and less.”
Putting a human face on the overdose issue is important, Marc-Antoine Deschamps, superintendent with Ottawa Paramedics Services, said. Deschamps also spoke at the event.
“I think it’s important the public knows about the stories involved with the overdoses. We often hear the statistics, but we often fail to see the story behind these overdoses,” he told the crowd.
Luc Cormier, the nursing team leader for the supervised injection site at SHCHC, said that the event’s aim is to reduce the stigma around opioid use and overdoses.
“It’s also a political event, in that we want to incite governments to do more, and listen to the community so they can come up with interventions that are effective,” he said.
According to Deschamps, so far in 2018, there have been 2,600 overdose calls paramedics have attended to, and 84 of those were life-threatening. That compares to 3,400 overdose calls and 200 life-threatening ones in 2017. Deschamps said he expects life-threatening overdoses to be down from 2017 by the end of this year.
“What’s important is people never do drugs alone, and these places can really help make sure people are supervised,” he said. “In the event of an overdose, breathing can stop in seconds, and then after a few minutes, brain damage starts to occur, so it is important we can get help there as quickly as possible.”
There were representatives from organizations such as Ottawa Public Health, who were handing out Narcan naloxone kits. Naloxone, an overdose antidote, is now distributed by Ottawa Public Health and in 300 pharmacies across Ottawa.
Members from the community also read out a list of demands, which called for 24-hour service at more supervised injection sites across the city.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has put the construction of several new supervised injection sites on hold while his government reviews the issue. But, both Boyd and Cormier said the science will make clear the benefit of these sites.
“We’re pretty optimistic they will see, like we have, the benefits of these sites, and the robust scientific evidence behind it,” Cormier said. “I think also the last time the government tried to completely abolish a safe injection site in Vancouver, it ended up in the [Supreme Court of Canada], and they ruled that it was against human rights to close an essential human service, so we think there’s a precedent, and so we’re optimistic.”
Photo by Bailey Moreton
