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By Kate Bouey
Overdose Prevention Site Planned For Ver

Overdose Prevention Site Planned For Vernon

Jan 21, 2019 | 1:00 PM

More effort is to be made to fight the drug overdose epidemic in Vernon where 24 people died of OD’s by the end of last November.

The Interior Health Authority is hoping to open an overdose prevention site in a central location of the city, according to Dr. Karin Goodison, an IH medical health officer.

“It’ll be a place where people could come, use their drug, have some support and to be doing that in the most safe manner possible,” Goodison said in an interview with Beach Radio News. “If they have an overdose, there will be people to respond to that overdose.”

Goodison says there is money set aside in this year’s budget for the site.

Speaking to city council Monday, Goodison said that in the first seven months of last year, over 900 naloxone kits had been handed out in Vernon.

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She said 462 of the kits were replacements for ones already used.

Naloxone can reverse an opioid overdose.

Goodison reminded council that B.C. remains in the grip of a public health emergency and that Vernon’s drug overdose death rate was above average in the Interior Health region.

Numbers released show 88 percent of reported overdose deaths in Vernon last year were men, with fentanyl detected in 71 percent of all cases.

Calling the 24 reported deaths “a huge number,” councillor Brian Quiring said he took naloxone training last week.

“I don’t think we’re doing enough because it’s so easy to take the training,” Quiring added.

“There is a lot of work to do still,” Goodison agreed.

by Kate Bouey

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