{"id":17543,"date":"2024-07-06T15:59:35","date_gmt":"2024-07-06T14:59:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/?p=17543"},"modified":"2024-10-05T14:53:16","modified_gmt":"2024-10-05T13:53:16","slug":"city-of-edmonton-stops-funding-drug-overdose-prevention-pilot-downtown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/2024\/07\/city-of-edmonton-stops-funding-drug-overdose-prevention-pilot-downtown\/","title":{"rendered":"City of Edmonton stops funding drug overdose prevention pilot downtown"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By\u00a0Madeleine Cummings<\/a><\/span>\u00a0\u00b7\u00a0<\/span>CBC News\u00a0\u00b7\u00a0<\/span>
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The City of Edmonton has stopped funding a pilot program that saw teams of nurses and outreach workers preventing and responding to overdoses on downtown streets.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Teams from Boyle Street Community Services had been assigned to walk around the\u00a0Stanley Milner Library, downtown malls and pedways and the LRT system. Their duties focused on responding to drug poisonings but they also helped educate business owners, pick up needles and refer people to services.<\/p>\n

The city funded the first phase of the pilot, which began in the spring of 2022, then extended its funding in December 2023, but Jen Flaman, deputy city manager of community services, told city council in a\u00a0May 27 memo<\/a>\u00a0that there were no administrative funds available to extend it further.<\/p>\n

The memo said the city submitted a funding request to the provincial government but was unsuccessful and has applied to a Health Canada program but has not heard back.<\/p>\n

The pilot cost $3.3 million, and included funding for a data analyst at Boyle Street.<\/p>\n

Marliss Taylor, who is Boyle Street’s director of Streetworks and health services and oversaw the pilot, said it was a success.<\/p>\n

She said the teams responded to more than 440 drug poisonings, distributed more than 20,000 naloxone kits, disposed of more than 7,000 sharp objects, and referred 2,500 people to detox or supervised consumption services.<\/p>\n

“We absolutely were able to save some lives\u00a0and I think that’s critically important,” Taylor said.<\/p>\n

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‘It never gets easier,’ says overdose prevention nurse, Tabatha Plesuk, a nurse based at the Stanley Milner Library in Edmonton. She said the teams also helped security guards and demonstrated friendly, respectful ways of interacting with vulnerable people in public places.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

EMS responses to opioid-related events\u00a0surged in Edmonton in recent years<\/a>\u00a0and a record\u00a01,867 people died<\/a>\u00a0in Alberta because of opioid poisoning last year.<\/p>\n

Though the rate of drug poisoning deaths in the province has slowed since 2023, Taylor said the number of overdoses in Edmonton is still high. According to the province’s substance use surveillance data, there were 148 drug poisoning deaths in the city between January and March of this year.<\/p>\n

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