Ottawa extends 1-year lifeline to London's safer opioid supply program
Matthew Trevithick | CBC News | Posted: April 4, 2024 11:05 AM | Last Updated: April 4
Funding a relief to physician leading the program, which currently helps 278 people
The future of Canada's first and longest-running safer opioid supply program is safe, at least for another year, after funding for the program was extended by the federal government.
Dr. Andrea Sereda, the physician who has led the London, Ont., program since its inception in 2016, said the news brings relief to her and the 278 people currently being helped by the initiative, aimed at preventing overdose deaths through the prescription of safe, pharmaceutical-grade drugs to opioid users.
However, a lack of capacity and resources and clinical providers willing to do the work is keeping the program from helping more of the thousands of Londoners who inject drugs, she said.
The program, run by London InterCommunity Health Centre, was one of 25 safer supply programs across the country to get funding from Ottawa in 2020, receiving $6.5 million. That funding ran out on Sunday and it was only a month ago that the agency learned it would receive a $1.7-million extension.
"There was an incredibly high level of moral distress and panic, both from clinical providers as well as our patients," Sereda said Wednesday.
"There have been so many tears over the past six months, over the past year, waiting to know if we would have this extension in funding. People would literally tell me, 'Almost everybody I know is dead. Am I also going to die, Dr. Sereda?' I didn't have an answer other than to say we were doing our best."
The funding will go toward direct patient care and hiring front-line staff to help participants, whom she says are "alive and thriving" because of the program, with non-fatal reversible overdoses reduced by two-thirds and no fatal overdoses among those using only their safer opioid supply.
A survey of 92 participants last year found 53 per cent of participants reported their use of fentanyl had declined during the program, while 11 per cent said it had stopped.
Other harm reduction workers are also relieved that the program is being extended, including Megan Van Boheemen, director of harm reduction services at Regional HIV/AIDS Connection (RHAC), which operates London's Carepoint consumption and treatment site at 446 York St.
RHAC still responds to overdoses on a regular basis and has seen client numbers rise at Carepoint since it opened in February 2023, Boheemen said. It's scary to think what may have happened to those in the safer supply program if funding wasn't renewed and it suddenly went away, she added.
"It certainly isn't perfect and there are things about it that need to be worked out," she said, acknowledging the program is "so stretched and doing great work with what they do."
Participants are provided health supports and prescribed alternate opioids, such as hydromorphone or methadone, to help move away from what Sereda called an "unpredictable, toxic fentanyl street supply."
That unpredictability came to the fore earlier this year when RHAC reported that the animal tranquillizer xylazine, known as "tranq," was appearing more in street fentanyl. The sedative can cause hours-long blackouts and wounds that can lead to amputation.
"When people have access to a supply that is a prescribed alternative that is pharmaceutical-grade, then you don't see those things popping up," Boheemen said.
The London Intercommunity Health Centre learned of the extension not long after Sereda appeared before a federal health committee, telling politicians that what she saw as disinformation and politicization of safer supply was taking focus away from helping those in need.
Nearly 43,000 opioid-related deaths were reported in Canada between January 2016 and last September, with 82 per cent linked to fentanyl, which isn't present in government-supplied drugs.
"For actually caring about saving the lives of another 42,000 Canadians, we need to look at the scientific research around harm reduction, and not around the polarizing political rhetoric and disinformation in some media," Sereda said on Wednesday.
Critics of safer opioid supply programs have said the policies are dangerous, drive people further into addiction, and more money should be put toward drug treatment.
They include Conservative Leader Pierre Poillevre, who has promised to stop funding safer supply.
Poillevre has previously taken aim at B.C.'s safer supply program, claiming government-funded drugs are being diverted and illegally sold on the street, something the province's solicitor general has refuted.