Die-in demands attention to overdose deaths
Participants laid prone in motionless silence to simulate the appearance of dead bodies, and draw attention to the lives lost to the toxic drug crisis. Photo provided by Dr. Eva Hemmerich
Sunday August 31st was International Overdose Awareness Day, and communities across Vancouver Island gathered on Friday August 29th to honour the day. The Village Clinic in Courtenay hosted an event at the Comox Valley Art Gallery, with support from organizations including Comox Valley Community Action Team, Solid Outreach, Moms Stop the Harm, and Doctors for Safer Drug Policy, AVI Health & Community Services, Comox Bay Care Society’s Care-A-Van and the Comox Valley Recovery Centre. An estimated 150 people were in attendance.
“Just seeing the emotion on everyone's faces there and how much it touched so many people; I mean, I wish we can get the message out to so many more people, and it's unfortunate the people that complain about things like decrim[inalization] and safe supply are the people that don't show up to educate themselves. Right? So it's unfortunate that way, and I wish we could just, you know, have the whole community there,” Heather Edward said.
Heather Edward is a peer support worker at The Village Clinic, and was the MC of Friday’s event, as well as one of the main organizers. Earlier this week she celebrated 17 months clean, and she said sharing her lived experience and her recovery is a gift.
“People see me and they see how well I'm doing and maybe can be that little hope for others out there. And, you know, if I could have asked for one thing out of my addiction and my struggles, it would be to be able to help others and provide them with that support,” she said.
Edward said that addiction is a mental illness and needs to have the criminality taken away from it. She said one goal of the day, emblazoned on the backs of their shirts, was to “end stigma, save lives.”
“It's that stigma. And even for myself, like I'm on the methadone program and like I said to my pharmacist the other day, like, ‘I hate it. I wanna get off it.’ And he reminded me that … ‘people come to me when they have high cholesterol, and they need a lifesaving medication.’ You know, ‘you're coming for a lifesaving medication for a disease that you have.’ And so if he's like, ‘the only difference is, is the stigma tied to it.’”
Edward said for her it’s also the side effects, like with any medication, that affects her most. But for someone she knows, it is the stigma and the fear of what his family will think that is stopping him from going to treatment.
“But we already know he's struggling and making bad decisions. So his family would be like, really happy to see him go to treatment, but he doesn't see it that way, right? So so there's that stigma tied to it. So just trying to end the stigma and just yeah, bring awareness to the fact that it could be anybody, anybody's family member, anybody's parent, anybody's child.”
The primary coordinator of Friday’s event, Dr. Eva Hemmerich, is the founder and director of The Village Clinic. She is a family physician who has been working in addictions since 2016 when she heard about the opioid crisis being declared a public health emergency.
“We've lost 52,000 Canadians since 2016, and that's a population which [is] greater than Courtney [and] Comox combined. Just to think about that, right? That's an incredible amount of people who died. And in BC we've lost 17,000 almost, and we continue to lose five people each day, preventable deaths. As well as it's now [the] number one cause of death aged 10 to 59, over combined of cancers, heart disease, suicides and accidents, reducing the life expectancy of Canadians,” Hemmerich said.
These numbers are stark and harrowing, but when faced with numbers and statistics it can be hard to remember the individual lives impacted. Friday’s event in Courtenay employed a form of non-violent protest known as a “die-in” to help drive the message home. A die-in is when protesters lay prone in motionless silence to simulate the appearance of dead bodies. In past decades, this action has been used to draw attention to death from causes like war, the AIDS epidemic, and environmental disasters.
Dr. Hemmerich participated in the die-in on Friday, and shares how it felt to take part.
“Actually it was very powerful. I laid down and a colleague of mine, she reached out, so we held hands which felt kind of special. But then we had Taija, who's a person with lived experience and also coordinator of the Solid Outreach, read a poem,” she said.
“And to the ones who’ve faced these deaths alone, I know that you did everything to try and bring your friends back home. And if you knew the moments we’ve seen each other through, you’d know, no matter what we did, sometimes there’s nothing you can do.”
Since 2016, 200 people in the Comox Valley have died as a result of toxic drug poisoning. Dr. Eva Hemmerich says these were preventable deaths, and is calling Canadian governments to take action urgently.
Provincially, she would like to see an urgent task force made up of experts in addiction medicine, and people with lived experience, as well as Minister of Health Josie Osborne, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry, and Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction Sheila Malcolmson. Dr. Hemmerich asks that this task force work together to outline a health-first, multifaceted model to solve the opioid crisis.
“Basically I think we need to adopt a model like they have in Portugal, but a modified model 'cause the situation and our countries are quite different and the systems are somewhat different. But in Portugal, 25 years ago, they had the highest overdoses of opioid deaths in Europe. And with a multifaceted model, basing addiction as a health issue, they managed to reduce the overdose death to the lowest,” she said.
Dr. Hemmerich explained that as well as decriminalizing personal use, the Portugal model included a commission that offered people treatment based on their individual needs, in the form of psychiatric care, healthcare, residential treatment and recovery programs, employment support, housing, and legal aid. Not only did mortality go down, so did infection rates, and with reduced expenses related to healthcare, paramedics, policing, and imprisonment, as well as increased productivity with people returning to work, Portugal saved money. Social costs of drug use dropped by 18%, which Hemmerich said when compared to Canada’s yearly 7 billion would translate to saving a quarter of a billion dollars.
But it’s not just about social costs, and saving money. It’s about the individuals who are being impacted, who are put at risk every day by an unregulated supply of the drug they rely on.
“Humans have been using substance[s] forever. They have dated back use of opium, cannabis and alcohol 7,000 years BC. So it's part of the human condition to self-medicate or use for ceremonies, religious reasons, medicinal, social or coping. And that's all okay, unless you keep using some substances like fentanyl that you become dependent on, addicted to, to the point where you can't stop using them,” she said.
Hemmerich said that what many people don’t realize is that once addicted to fentanyl, a person must use it every three to four hours or suffer severe flu symptoms, including joint pain, body pain, chills, sweating, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, agitation, anxiety, insomnia and depression. And when there are benzodiazepines added to the fentanyl supply, the resulting seizures mean people can die from withdrawal. Dr. Hemmerich said it is a common misconception that people should just be able to quit, when in fact it is not safe to quit without medical supervision and support. Providing that medical support, Dr. Hemmerich said, is the most meaningful work she has done as a doctor.
“And when they do reach recovery, it's a beautiful population to work with, beautiful people to have as patients because they work so hard, they are my heroes. It's incredible what they've been through, and they come through with shining colors and are so appreciative and so lovely and funny and smart and the best patients, in my experience, to work with. I feel very honored and, it's a joy to follow people along their journey. And very rarely in medicine do you see such a change in somebody's condition. You see them walk in at their lowest point, and then very quickly do you see them at their beauty, and that is amazing to be part of and experiencing,” Hemmerich said.
Heather Edward said addiction and the toxic drug crisis could impact anyone, and if members of the community were more educated on the issue, they would be better prepared to support their loved ones in the future.
“I would love it if people would just educate themselves more, and to show up to these events when they don't know. And even if they think they know, it would still be nice to see people show up at these events that are on the other side, 'cause we're happy to have a healthy debate,” Edward said.
Dr. Eva Hemmerich hopes that events like International Overdose Awareness Day spark awareness, and ignite a change in public perception.
“I hope people walk away hearing these things, that they feel a little bit empowered that there is a way that we can turn this around. We need to change our view of addiction to a health issue, to an illness, and we need to adopt a health first model which addresses all the complexities, all the different facets of this illness. And then we can turn it around, we can be successful. And it has been done, so we need to just get down to it,” Hemmerich said.
If you or someone you know in the Comox Valley is experiencing a crisis, you can reach AVI’s mobile crisis response team at 250-681-4878.
For information or help navigating local services, call Island Health’s Mental Health and Substance Use Service Link at 1-888-885-8824.
This story included files from Gordon Ross.
Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada. Reporting done in the Comox Valley is done in partnership with CVOX.