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The Current Transcript for August 25, 2017

Host: Piya Chattopadhyay

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

Probably tripled in the past five years, and the amount of estates that we're doing from the baby boomer generation, because the kids don't want it or they inherited it. They don't want it for their house.

[Background theme music]

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: It's been good times for estate auctioneers as a new generation says: “No thanks” to precious family heirlooms that were passed down to them. So what to do about all that stuff. And whose responsibility is it. Coming up: How one generation's jewels is another's unwanted junk. And then:

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I remember being told I was dead for 10 minutes and that I wasn't answering and wasn't responding and I wasn't breathing.

PC: That is not an unfamiliar story at Vancouver's St. Paul's Hospital. The busiest emergency department in that city is dealing with an out of control and deadly opioid crisis, and similar stories and scenes are replicated across our country, in towns and cities, big and small. We will take you to St. Paul's Hospital, in half an hour, to hear what the opioid crisis sounds like. But first the grandfather clock stops here. Hi I'm Piya Chattopadhyay and this is the summer edition of The Current one day.

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How unwanted family heirlooms create a divide with aging parents

Guests: Linda Hochstetler, Plum Johnson, Karen Shinn

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: One day, Lad, all this will be hours.

VOICE 2: But, the curtains?

VOICE 1: Not just the curtains, Lad. All what you can see, stretched out over [unintelligible] and valleys of this land. That will be our kingdom, Lad.

VOICE 2: But, Mother…

VOICE 1: Father, I am father.

VOICE 2: But, Father. I do not want any of that. I would rather…

VOICE 1: Rather what?

VOICE 2: I would rather just [music starts] sing.

VOICE 1: Stop that. Stop that. [Music stops] You are not to [unintelligible] a song while I am here.

PC: [Laughs] Oh that's Monty Python's The Holy Grail. And while most of us are not inheriting a castle, or a swamp, one day we might be getting our parents curtains. Or maybe it's that silverware that comes out once a year, or those plates with the flower pattern, or the books, the shelves and shelves of books. Well, you may have seen the headlines. We are in the midst of the greatest wealth transfer in human history, thanks to aging baby boomers who have accumulated a generation's worth of stuff. The question is: Does anybody want it? In the eyes of parents and grandparents, the heirlooms they bequeath often hold special meaning worthy of being passed down to future generations. But too often for their children and grandchildren, this stuff is junk they don't want or need or that they don't have room for or perhaps will one day mean they will have to pay someone else to remove it. Today we're going to examine how families are navigating the heirloom avalanche and the generational divide it exposes. Let's begin with Linda Hochstetler. Linda is a social worker and her family, like so many others, is dealing with stuff right now. Linda is here in Toronto Hi.

LINDA HOCHSTETLER: Hi, Dear.

PC: So when it comes to planning, your parents are organized?

LINDA HOCHSTETLER: Yes. I mean they seem to be organized. My father had a heart attack about 30 years ago. And as a result they did all the, you know, the requisite things like they completed their wills. They did their advanced care plans. They did a pre-paid funeral. They seemed like they were prepared.

PC: At 30 years on the summer you learned what about your parents and their possessions?

LINDA HOCHSTETLER: Well, they're not ready to let go of it yet. So, I went home for a regular visit with all my siblings. Let me you know say there's about 20 of us now and all of us were home. We arrive at home and my dad has prepared a table, in the middle of the living room, and on this table it's cluttered filled with lots of little things and they're all pieces. There's like little pictures, little glass. There's tin plates and they're all things that I've been given to him, through the years, by his relatives. And he's hoping that we kids are going to want these.

PC: [Chuckles] And when you look at it you see tin pie plate.

PC: I see tin pie plates and I think “I don't really one of those”.

PC: And so you scan the table.

LINDA HOCHSTETLER: Yes.

PC: And so I don't know how many things are on this table, but like approximately, how many do you want? And how many do your siblings want? And what kinds of things do you want?

LINDA HOCHSTETLER: Well there's about 80 pieces on this table and there's about 20 of us, and each of us go: “Hmm, maybe one or two things we take”. And of course the one or two things each of us wants are the same that somebody else wants, because most of the stuff is broken, chipped or just a single piece. So, beautiful china but like a single piece and so, none of us really want anything.

PC: What were your faves?

LINDA HOCHSTETLER: So, there was a couple of pieces of blue china that we happen to like. There was some of the Red Special glassware that was that it's actually an antique and actually worth something. So there's a few things that have both value as well as beauty. So we were kind of drawn to the things are pretty.

PC: And the thing is Linda, is that you know, when families get around to doing this - and some don't , right? Sometimes the family doesn't gather around the table. So good on your dad for doing that.

LINDA HOCHSTETLER: Yes.

PC: So, when you do that you don't want to hurt your Pop’s feelings. So how does what's that like sort of tenor of the conversation what's going on there?

LINDA HOCHSTETLER: Well so we all are a little, like shy, which is kind of not like us. We're all like: “Well we could take a piece or two”. And Dad's kind of like going: “Oh! Wow! I thought you might want a whole bunch.” And he's kind of wanting us all to fight over it. He's wanting us to really like stand up and take each other on and say: “No I want that! I want that!” And it's not happening. And so there's this real quiet. And then it gets even worse because, over the course of the weekend, we kids thought we're actually if we're going to take two pieces then we're going to take two pieces. And over the course of the weekend he wouldn't let us take any.

PC: What do you mean?

LINDA HOCHSTETLER: He kind of wanted to keep it there and keep looking at it. And so by the time we actually all left, we left with nothing.

PC: And your father has everything …

LINDA HOCHSTETLER: My father still has everything.

PC: I mean have you guys talk with him? How did he feel about it?

LINDA HOCHSTETLER: He was frustrated because he wanted us to fight over the stuff he wanted. It somehow gave his life meaning for the kids to fight over things, in a way that we kids were like, but we don't want that stuff. So we felt bad as if it was sort of demeaning his life.

PC: Why not just take this stuff. Throw it out when you take it home.

LINDA HOCHSTETLER: That's an interesting question because I think in some families this is what happens. We kids are way too stubborn.

PC: [Laughs]

LINDA HOCHSTETLER: Because my dad brought us up the way he wanted. He wanted a stubborn and with integrity. And none of us want to take things and throw it out. So it's in some ways…

PC: But that's what your dad's saying: “I don't want this stuff thrown out.”

LINDA HOCHSTETLER: That's right. So we're actually in agreement with him in not wanting to throw things out. And so it puts us in this catch 22, that the stuff doesn't get taken.

PC: So what happens now. Your dad still has a stuff.

LINDA HOCHSTETLER: All the stuff is still there, except one sister saw this really cute little covered butter dish in the shape of a chicken that we all kind of wanted. Well, she took it. Took it to her house and three days later we get an e-mail to all of us saying: “Who took the chicken?”

PC: [Laughs]

LINDA HOCHSTETLER: And so the one piece that did go, my dad's upset about. He wants back.

PC: You're kidding me.

LINDA HOCHSTETLER: I'm not kidding. So it's the sort of tension of “Do you want to give it to us. Do you not. Yes you do.” Because they see that if they don't distribute these things, they'll never be able to move to this retirement home they say they want to. But this has been going on over and over. Every time we go home there's more of these kind of scenarios where my dad has stuff he wants to give away, but can't quite.

PC: So you know it's sort of humorous and lovely in the ways, but under all of this sort of lies a practical thing. “What are we going to do with this stuff?” Brothers and sisters and you know other relatives. But for a lot of people there is also this frustration like oh we going to deal with this.

LINDA HOCHSTETLER: It's exasperating because I love my parents dearly. I want them to be happy. I want them to be able to age well, look forward to death. I really want them to be able to go to this retirement home. And so I wish these great things for them. And I'm really sad that they don't see. They don't seem to have the insight that they have to push through this step of openly saying: “Here are things you may have if you like, and if you don't then we'll get rid of them”, and they can't quite do that. So I'm sad for them and I'm frustrated that we spent so many of our family gatherings these days doing this kind of work. And literally it's not about an elephant in the room, but I'm telling you we have tables set up in the middle of [unintelligible cross talking] full of stuff. So you know every time I go home - I'm going home next month again and I'm sure we're going to have another table with another set of things.

PC: And you will go home empty handed.

LINDA HOCHSTETLER: And I am hoping to go home empty handed. That's my I goal. I'm not going to my parents hoping to get stuff I don't want. I'll take things if I want it but I'm not hoping to take things back with me.

PC: Good luck with it all. Thank you.

LINDA HOCHSTETLER: Thanks for having me.

PC: Linda Hochstetler is a social worker and also a kid who is trying to deal with her parents stuff. She was here with me in our Toronto studio. Well we're joined now by two people who have long considered the meaning of stuff we inherit, including the guilt that sometimes comes with throwing it out. Plumb Johnson is the author of They Left us Everything. It is a memoir about a family dealing with its past. After she and her brothers cleared out their parents’ home. And Karen Shinn is the co-founder of Downsizing Diva. It is a franchise company that helps seniors and their families clear out stuff. Karen Shinn is also a member of the National Association of Senior Move Managers. Both Karen and Plumb are here with me in Toronto, as well. Hi to both of you.

KAREN SHINN: Good morning.

PLUM JOHNSON: Good morning.

PC: Karen. As a person who professionally helps people with their moves, and especially people who are older getting rid of their stuff, how often do you hear stories like the one Linda just told us?

KAREN SHINN: I think we hear that story more often than enough. And I'm just making a quick note here saying that, for people like Linda, often the motivating factor in letting go of things, actually getting to the point where things are going, is the opportunity to move. So, when the piles of things are placed on tables, that's the starting point. But unless those things from that table, in her last visit, unless they disappeared they're just going to be put back where they were. She'll probably see the same things next time.

PC: Just in a different position.

KAREN SHINN: Just in a different place. We'll move them around. But for many of the people we work with, the opportunity to move to a retirement residence, to downsize if you like - It just means - it's mathematical. They can't take it all. So they start to determine what's really important to them. So, if they don't use it, want it, or need it. It is the elephant in the broom. That's what we call it as well.

PC: Except for, they might intellectually and practically understand: “I am moving into a smaller space. I got to get rid of my stuff no matter how emotionally tied I am to that.” And yet, many people can't seem to let it physically go.

KAREN SHINN: Oh, because the last thing that we hear from most of our clients says: “Well I know what I'm taking to the new place and my children will take care of the rest”, and we go: “No! No, they won't.”

PC: Or “No they shouldn't have to”, perhaps.

KAREN SHINN: Well they shouldn't have to. But we always say you know your children probably have their own furniture and accessories and things in their house. They don't have room for yours. But it is that transfer of, not only wealth - which I said to one man a while back: ``Your children don't want your stuff`` and he says: “Well they do want something of mine” and I said: “Oh what's that?” “My money.” And that is one thing that they won't turn down, but the stuff?

PC: So this has been described, as I said, as the greatest wealth transfer in human history. I'm curious about how much of this is about throwing stuff away, which no one really likes doing. There's always used for stuff but stuff going to the dump. Are people just against that?

KAREN SHINN: We call it -I think it is true. I think people don't want to see it go to the dump. There's an expression that we use and it's called Safe Passage and it means we aren't necessarily going to sell it but we are going to see if we can't get it into the hands of someone who will treasure it as much as you have. So this Safe Passage idea is really important.

PC: Like who? Because when I think of my friends wouldn't want that either. People that I know, don't want my parents…

KAREN SHINN: We're seeing places like Salvation Army, a Value Village, the thrift shops are saying: “Whoa, we're getting too much of it too”. But we do in terms of furniture and clothes. We have affiliations with the Furniture Bank for instance, and Canadian Diabetes that they are looking for things. So, for some of our clients we can say, you know, your furniture now that you've finished with some of the pieces of it can go and furnish a home for people who have nothing. That's the warm fuzzy that kind of makes up for letting go of that. And if we can replace the: “I'm not letting go of a single thing,” to “Well somebody else is going to use it and enjoy it, just like we did”, it makes everybody feel better.

PC: Plum Johnson, your memoir, this is lived experience for you and then you wrote a memoir about: Clearing out your family's home after the death of your mom, when you started. I mean where did you come to this from? Like, mom, I'm sorry I miss you but I'm thrown away all your stuff? Or were you like - What was sort of your thinking about when you went into this?

PLUM JOHNSON: Well when I went into it she was dead. And they had never downsized. So they had been in the same place for 65 years. So you know, that's the story that happened frequently back in their generation, where families just stayed on in one place for a very long time. I have some guilt around. The one thing mum used to say before she died was about the house. She would often say to me: “What's going to happen to this house after I die?” And in the early days when she would ask that I'd say: “Oh well, we'll try and keep it. Maybe we turn it into a B and B. Maybe we can, you know, rent out some rooms.” We try to be creative in our thinking because we didn't want to let it go either. But by the end when she was still saying that, finally one day I said to her: “Mom, none of us can afford it. We're going to have to sell it”. And I wish I had never said that, because I realized that she in fact was the house, and all she wanted was for that to be acknowledged. I should have said to her: “Mom we will always treasure the house and it will always remind us of you”. That's really what she needed to hear.

PC: Fib a little bit.

PLUM JOHNSON: Well, no in fact we did do that.

PC: You did?

PLUM JOHNSON: I did that with the book, right. I treasured the house that way.

PC: Okay. When you practically had to go in there, after your mother's death, and clean it out. I mean was it like a lot of people when they go into the parents, just piles and piles of stuff that you didn't want.

PLUM JOHNSON: Yes, hence the title of the book, right. You know because the first thing I said was: “Oh my god! They left us everything.”

PC: [Laughs]

PLUM JOHNSON: And we went through, I guess what everybody else did - We hired some professionals, a professional appraiser to come in. But I ended up spending, as you probably know two year almost two years, going through and documenting everything because the things that I - And it was which was a very profound journey. I didn't do it alone. I had brothers who did it with me. But it was a fascinating journey back into the lives of Mom and Dad. And I think if we had called someone in to take everything to 1 800 junk, or the thrift store, or whatever, I never would have sort of discovered sides of my dad for example.

PC: What did you find that makes you say that?

PLUM JOHNSON: Well the two things in particular that come to my mind off the top, one was a single mitten that he had in his top drawer that had been my youngest brother's mitten. I never thought of dad as being that sentimental. And I found a newspaper that was a line - he used as a liner in his bottom drawer - that when I opened it I realized it was the very first newspaper, after the Singapore was liberated. And it had lists and lists of all the people that had been evacuated from the prisoner of war camps. And he had underlined the people that he knew and written on poppy down the side of one. That would have gone straight into the garbage. So there were there were treasures that we found amongst the things most people would have put in the garbage.

PC: Those are the sentimental things. I think most of us can go - like you know the mitten, the newspaper, you found thousands of letters that your mother had written, Plumb. But then there's all that other stuff, Karen. What do people not want anymore that their parents’ generation think: “Geez you should really keep this, really special” Do you usually come across something?

KAREN SHINN: I think it's the - We were talking earlier. I think it's that all of the trappings of success. So the that 12 place settings of good china, the entertaining sterling silver, the cup, the tea pots and creamers. I think some of the things that for our parents and grandparents that indicated when they had those they'd made it. That was that was the ultimate. And I think to have their children and I'm a pretty strong believer at the moment being a boomer, but I really believe that boomers are the last generation to really have any of what Plum's talking about, of some guilt of holding onto things just because they were moms, dads, great grandmas, whatever. But that sense of heirlooms of family history I don't think is going to go past that generation, because it's purely practical now. Younger people are saying: “We physically don't have the room” and Plumb and I were talking earlier and, as Plumb said, for now right now they're living in 500 square feet,400 square feet. But they might not always do that.

PC: Except for like, sorry mom, but my mom has a bigillion plate. And she entertains large crowds of people in her house. And I would say her get rid of some of those plates. My sister and I aren't going to want all of those plates. We will take for a set of four each. Because we don't live that same lifestyle. I can't put your gold rimmed plate in my microwave. And yet it's a battle.

KAREN SHINN: And I think it must it must be hard because we always sort of try to picture coming from their position of saying “Well I'm surprised you don't want it.” But the reality is we all hold on to things. I've held onto my report cards. I don't have children. My nieces and nephews certainly don't want them but they were still there until recently. They've been shredded and they're gone, but we hold on to things that we treasure and hope someone else will treasure them as well.

PC: This is not about practicality per se. This is about emotional stuff right. Plum, you know you talked about finding these things. I mean when you think about it, it took you two years to go through all your parents stuff. When you think about it now, I know you have children. How do you sort of see this emotionally, passing on stuff to the next generation?

PLUM JOHNSON: Well, my children of course know that I'm going to leave all of the junk to them.

[Laughter]

PLUM JOHNSON: I'm not I'm not clearing it out at all, and they know that that.

PC: Really?

PLUM JOHNSON: Oh, really.

PC: Okay.

PLUM JOHNSON: I've thought long and hard because I actually have some diaries, unlike my mother who had no diaries that I could find any way. But I do have some sensitive material throughout the house. And I have imagined what they will think when they read it. Good luck to them.

PC: You are doing this sort of deliberately.

[Cross talk]

PLUM JOHNSON: I can't predict the future. You know maybe they'll have to downsize me beforehand but I won't care. I'll be dead. It won't matter to me what they do with it. They can garbage it. But I think all of us, all of us want to feel that we meant something. We want to leave some trace of us behind. And I think that's why we cling to things, probably in the end the most important things are documents, and you know photographs things like that. But I think I think that's why it's hard to let go.

PC: I am going to ask your kids about this. I will get them on air and see what they think about you leaving everything.

[Laughter]

PC: Thank you to you both. Thank you very much for coming in.

PLUM JOHNSON: Thank you.

PC: Plumb Johnson is the author of The Memoir: They left us Everything. And Karen Shinn is the co-founder of Downsizing Diva. They were both here with me in our Toronto studio. We do want to know what you have to say if you have a lot of stuff that you want to pass down, or if your soon to be the recipient of stuff or maybe later on and you don't want this stuff. Tell us about your experiences with your possessions your parents, maybe even an actor an uncle and what that has revealed about you and your family. You can e-mail us at thecurrent.cbc.ca, our Facebook page is CBC The Current, or you can tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. All right. The CBC News is next. And then:

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Somebody grab the oxygen please.

VOICE 2: Wakey wakey.

VOICE 3: She had Narcan times two from the Narcan kit.

VOICE 2: Lay on your side. We're going to take you to emerg. We just picked her up from the washroom down the hallway.

PC: Scenes from ground zero in Vancouver's struggle to save overdose victims. That's coming up. I'm Piya Chattopadhyay and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current. We're back in just a bit.

[Music: Theme]

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ENCORE | 'I was dead for 10 minutes': Vancouver's opioid overdose crisis

Guests: Linda Hochstetler, Plum Johnson, Karen Shinn

PC: Hi I'm Piya Chattopadhyay and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

[Music: Theme]

PC: Coming up next. Ground zero in Vancouver's fentanyl crisis. In Vancouver last December, nine people died of drug overdoses in a single night. It was an alarming number and one that led the police and the mayor of Vancouver to hold a press conference calling for more detox and addiction treatment help. It also led the B.C. coroner Service to issue an urgent warning to users of illicit drugs, especially in the downtown, East side of Vancouver, to take extra care. But sadly those nine deaths, in a single night, were the continuation of an ongoing trend. The number of overdose deaths in B.C. is up 88% from this time last year with 111 suspected overdose deaths in B.C. just this past June. And in Vancouver alone the latest tally, was released this week, has the grim news that overdose deaths in the city have already surpassed the number for all of 2016. There have been more than 230 deaths so far this year. First responders and hospital emergency rooms in Vancouver hospitals are overwhelmed. Of course the drug fentanyl has been a major culprit in the problem and increasingly the even stronger drug, Carfentanil, is also on the streets. CBC reporter Natalie Clancey joined Vancouver's frontline workers on a busy night last December. Here again is her documentary. It is called Fentanyl Ground Zero: A Night in Canada's Busiest Overdose E.R.

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[Sound: Ambulance sirens and dispatch]

DISPATCHER: Vancouver medics 2. [Unintelligible] An emergency. Medical aid. Overdose. 1 3 9 East [unintelligible] Street, near Columbia Street and Main Street. You pass [unintelligible]

[Sound: Sirens]

[Sound: Chatter]

ALEXANDRA LAVIOLETTE: I remember being told that I was dead for 10 minutes and that I wasn't answering and I wasn't responding and I wasn't breathing between seven to 10 minutes.

NATALIE CLANCY: Alexandra Laviolette has no idea how much Naloxone, or Narcan, it took to revive her. That's the shot that reverses the effects of opioids. The 24 year old was rushed to St. Paul's Hospital in downtown Vancouver by ambulance.

ALEXANDRA LAVIOLETTE: I just remember my friends telling me that and telling me that I had to go in the ambulance. And I honestly don't remember even doing the drugs. So apparently, I overdosed. That's scary.

NATALIE CLANCY: She's a striking redhead who could pass for a model, if not for the red scabs on her face and needle marks on her arms—signs of chronic IV drug use. Paramedics found her on the street— not quite how she remembers it.

ALEXANDRA LAVIOLETTE: So I was at my friend's house just hanging out actually. Well, I suppose it was heroin that had been laced with fentanyl or actually, just very pure heroin. So one of the two. I mean I can still feel the effects from it now. I’m really groggy and I’m very tired. I’m lethargic and I’m having a hard time keeping my eyes open. You know what, lately I've been finding that the drugs are weaker and weaker and weaker. And then all of a sudden, you’ll get this crazy batch of super strong stuff. You can't just go zero trace amounts in everything and then bam, full blown, 100 per cent. Like nobody in their right mind should be serving a cocktail that strong.

NATALIE CLANCY: As we talk, her eyes roll back and she nearly passes out as the naloxone wears off. Nurse Tanya Campbell watches her closely.

TANYA CAMPBELL: Right now, she’s okay. We’re going to definitely keep an eye on her. She was a lady who was found outside of the clinic—what’s it called—the safe injection site. She was found outside on the road, pretty well on the sidewalk. Decreased LOC, so a decreased level of consciousness. They ended up—the staff from the clinic came out. They actually administered Narcan. It didn’t really work. They were bagging her with a bag. When the paramedics arrived, she still hadn't woken up. It wasn’t until they actually got her into the ambulance that she started to wake up. And then as you’ve seen her now, she’s awake, she’s alert. But it doesn’t mean that she’ll go back—she could possibly go back down so that’s why we’re going to keep an eye on her for a little bit of time.

NATALIE CLANCY: Another nurse bring Alexandra an egg sandwich and a glass of juice, as she sits on a hard resin chair where overdose patients must wait, next to the emergency entrance.

ALEXANDRA LAVIOLETTE: Thank you, Ann.

ANN: You’re welcome.

NATALIE CLANCY: Not getting a bed or any privacy doesn't seem to bother Laviolette. Nurses watch her a little longer, give her a donated winter coat, and she's out the door and back on the street, likely to return.

TANYA CAMPBELL: You really don't know what's mixed in whatever you are taking. You might think it's a high but you could end up with us having a tube down your throat and not being able to breathe on your own.

[Sound: Radio dispatch, sirens]

DISPATCHER: Vancouver medics 2. [Unintelligible] An emergency. Medical aid. Overdose. Andy Livingstone Park. U [unintelligible] 6.

VOICE 1 : [unintelligible] Ambulance van responding to Andy Livingstone Park.

VOICE 2: Go ahead [unintelligible]

[Sound: Sirens]

NATALIE CLANCY: While another overdose patient arrives by ambulance, someone tells the triage nurse a woman needs help in the hospital’s public washroom.

VOICE 3: Is it actually an overdose?

TANYA CAMPBELL: Yeah.

NATALIE CLANCY: Nurse Tanya Campbell races down the hall pushing a gurney.

TANYA CAMPBELL: We just found her in the washroom.

[Sound: Chatter]

NATALIE CLANCY: While most overdose victims are brought to the hospital by paramedics or police, her next patient is already here, unresponsive on the bathroom floor.

VOICE 4: Somebody grab the oxygen please.

TANYA CAMPBELL: Wakey wakey.

VOICE 2: She had Narcan times two from the Narcan kit.

TANYA CAMPBELL: Lay on your side. We're going to take you to emerg. We just picked her up from the washroom down the hallway.

NATALIE CLANCY: The middle aged woman had just been discharged from upstairs and overdosed while waiting for a taxi.

GERI PLATKO: You overdosed.

TANYA CAMPBELL: Are you still with me?

PATIENT: Yes.

NATALIE CLANCY: Her friend didn't inject as much, so was able to give her naloxone.

TANYA CAMPBELL: Both of them went into the washroom to do a hit and when—I’m not sure if the one who actually became the patient did the hit first—but both of them did a hit. And the one who was the friend noticed that her friend had gone down and decided to use her own personal Narcan kit to try to save her friend’s life, which of course she did.

TANYA CAMPBELL: Guys, I’m just going to put her straight in the spot over here. I’ve got an empty bed so let’s go into 15.

GERI PLATKO: I ran out of the bathroom and I hollered at people, "Somebody's overdosing in the bathroom.”

NATALIE CLANCY: Geri Platko says she's no hero. The 62 year old says she and her friend thought they were being careful.

GERI PLATKO: Now this stuff we got, I was told don't do it alone, but you’re always told that. And I was told it’s really strong. And then she says well, when you fix, don't do it all. Just put half in. I said okay, you too. But she threw it all in and she went under.

NATALIE CLANCY: Platko says it was the first time she’d ever used the kit that is now widely distributed to drug users in Vancouver.

GERI PLATKO: But I got my Narcan kit in there. She’s on the ground and I broke it and they said, "Do you know what you are doing?" and I said yeah. They said [unintelligible]. And they moved aside and I [unintelligible] and I put it right in the muscle. And I know I have to wait three more minutes. If she doesn't retrieve, I can put the second one in, right? So I put the second one in and that helped, right? It started bringing her around, the second shot of Narcan.

NATALIE CLANCY: Platko sits at her friend's bedside. She knows exactly what she's going through because she overdosed herself in the same hospital, three days earlier.

GERI PLATKO: They told me if I wasn't in the hospital and did it, I would have been dead, right? My heart stopped and everything.

NATALIE CLANCY: So you overdosed three days ago?

GERI PLATKO: Well, yeah. I zonked right out and I fell down to the ground and they heard that. But somebody was with me, a friend of mine, because they told me not to do it alone. So the nurse, they came running because when they heard my body hit the ground, they came and they Narcaned me right into my leg, right? But I wasn't reacting, they said. But you know the strange thing about it? I could hear them and see them but I was dead. My heart stopped. And I couldn’t move or anything, right? My body wasn’t reacting.

NATALIE CLANCY: Platko recovered, used again, and knows there is no way to be sure she won't OD again. She says she's been addicted since she was 14 years old. [To Geri Platko] Is it getting worse? Is the stuff that’s out there stronger?

GERI PLATKO: Oh yeah. It’s getting scary. There's a lot of heroin out there that's really strong. Very strong. Very.

NATALIE CLANCY: What many heroin addicts don't realize is that they are being sold fentanyl, not heroin. So many of the people dying from fentanyl overdoses don't even realize they are on the drug. While nurses restock Platko's naloxone kit with three more shots, Dr. Kevin Nemethy checks in on her friend who can barely keep her eyes open.

DOCTOR KEVIN NEMETHY: Dr. Nemethy. How are you feeling? You okay? Do you remember what happened?

PATIENT: [Inaudible]

DOCTOR KEVIN NEMETHY: Okay. She told you, eh? Okay. Are you on the methadone program or the suboxone program? Methadone? And do you take that regularly? Do you have a naloxone kit or have you used one before? No. Are you interested in one? Okay. We’ll make sure that we get you one before you go. And we'll just watch you until you’re a bit more awake. We’ll print out for you as well. We have a rapid access addictions clinic that's running Monday to Friday, nine until five p.m. You can actually self-refer there. You don't need an appointment. You can just go during their hours if you are interested. We’ll give you that information so you have it.

DOCTOR KEVIN NEMETHY: [To Natalie Clancy] We’re seeing a fairly steady stream of overdoses and overdose related complaints. I haven't looked at the numbers but I think we are seeing roughly 15 to 20 overdoses or more in about a 12-hour to 24-hour period. We’re seeing actually a great response to the take-home naloxone kits. It's been a really positive side of this whole crisis, is that the community has really rallied. There’s a big interest in taking the naloxone kits home so we’ve actually found that we’re using more than we ever anticipated. The people who use the drugs themselves are doing an incredible job of figuring out ways to stay safe. So things like using together, using in a place where you can be seen if you get into trouble, and then also the naloxone kits. There’s all sorts of little bits of silver lining like that, that are at least helping with some of the saves that are happening.

NATALIE CLANCY: He says without a small army of what's been dubbed the Narcan warriors—the users who carry the antidote to fentanyl—the death toll would be so much worse. But with carfentanil now on the streets—the much more potent opioid that’s supposed to tranquilize elephants—is a game changer.

DOCTOR KEVIN NEMETHY: One of the things we are quite concerned about with something like carfentanil and even fentanyl is that we’re seeing cases where before, a single vial or a single standard dose has been more than enough. Now we are not finding the desired effect until we give ten times the dose or even twenty times the dose of naloxone.

NATALIE CLANCY: [To Dr. Kevin Nemethy] Twenty times the dose? So how many shots of naloxone is that if I have a kit?

DOCTOR KEVIN NEMETHY: A typical dose of naloxone would be about 0.4 to 0.8 milligrams, so almost a milligram, say. And a vial typically has, I believe, about a milligram in it. So we are now having cases that need 10, sometimes even more than 10 milligrams, or even a continuous infusion of naloxone running over time to actually maintain the effect.

[Sound: Radio dispatch, sirens]

NATALIE CLANCY: Dr. Nemethy's next patient is a middle-aged man who overdosed on what he thought was cocaine and heroin, but was more likely fentanyl.

DOCTOR KEVIN NEMETHY: It’s almost in everything now.

NATALIE CLANCY: Paramedics and nurses work together to figure out what drugs he took.

PARAMEDIC: The friend said the other [unintelligible].

NURSE: Oh, friend said the other?

PARAMEDIC: He had both, half and half.

MAN: No, I just did heroin. I did coke earlier.

NURSE: That’s what you know you did.

MAN: Oh yeah.

NURSE: Yeah. Could be anything but that’s what you know you did.

NATALIE CLANCY: He won't be discharged until gets a naloxone kit and training on how to use it.

NURSE: This is for you. So you have three doses.

NATALIE CLANCY: The nurse gives him a small zippered case with everything he needs to give himself or someone else a lifesaving first dose.

NURSE: They’re not pre-done. So if you feel yourself getting too sleepy, you’re going to—first thing—call for help because this is not the end. This is only buying you time to get you to the hospital. Especially if there’s fentanyl in it, you know it’s going to last longer than the Narcan because this is only good for half an hour. There’s three doses in here, but it’s still only good for half an hour. So once it wears off, the opiate comes back, grabs you, you are down again. Flick it, crack it, draw it up. Now, the reason we give you these in here, is the alcohol swab. You’re going to put in in the big muscle here.

NATALIE CLANCY: The man leaves and his empty chair is quickly filled with another overdose patient.

[Sound: Radio dispatch]

NATALIE CLANCY: A 19-year-old woman in a soaked hoodie who gets another egg sandwich from Nurse Campbell. [To Tanya Campbell] People have told me the stigma of addiction—we’re not mobilizing like we would for SARS or H1N1. Are we doing enough? And when you see this population, it’s not like—I don’t know how to convey it to people—it’s not like these people are all partying and having a great day.

TANYA CAMPBELL: No. No. It becomes more of their daily life—at least for some of the people in the downtown east side—that they don't even know how to get out of it because it's become such a pattern in their life. It almost becomes the norm, which is very sad. Extremely sad.

NATALIE CLANCY: [To Tanya Campbell] Do you worry there’s going to come a time where Narcan is not going to work because whatever people are taking is just too strong?

TANYA CAMPBELL: I think that's a fear that all of us have as healthcare workers. There’s one day we’re not even going to be able to even try to save these people. We're going to have a horrific amount of people dying on the street because they’re not quite sure what they’re taking and it ends up being something we can't bring them back from. I think that's a horrific thing that might actually happen, sooner than later, which is really scary.

NATALIE CLANCY: [To Tanya Campbell] You had that? Have you had the same person come again and again and you’ve saved them and tried to help them?

TANYA CAMPBELL: Oh yes. Yesterday we had someone come back seven times in one day, getting Narcaned in the community or here every single time. So it can get overwhelming. It can get to the point where you’re just like, why are we doing this? This is getting too much. But at the end of the day, when I actually saw him at the end, he’s like you know, I really need to do something about it. So occasionally you can break through and you can find that one moment. Everyone has their limit of how much they can handle. I haven't seen him today so perhaps he is getting a little bit better. You just hope. Just keep the hope going.

[Sound: Radio dispatch]

VOICE 1: Okay. Okay. We can bring him in.

VOICE 2: That didn’t work out very well.

VOICE 1: Alright. I’m just going to go grab security. Can we grab security?

NATALIE CLANCY: Another man who overdosed yesterday is back—agitated, complaining of chest pain because they were too rough performing CPR the day before, after he overdosed and nearly died.

MAN: I have the right as a citizen of this country. I do not have to go in that hospital. I can go.

DOCTOR KEVIN NEMETHY: Do you know what day it is today?

MAN: Yep.

DOCTOR KEVIN NEMETHY: What day is it?

MAN: It’s Thursday.

DOCTOR KEVIN NEMETHY: Thursday. And what’s the year?

MAN: 2016.

DOCTOR KEVIN NEMETHY: Okay. Okay.

MAN: I passed it. Good. Now leave me alone.

DOCTOR KEVIN NEMETHY: No, no, no. Hang on. So you’re having chest pain, right? What could happen to you if you’re having a heart attack and we don’t do anything about it?

MAN: I already know. I’ve had four of them.

DOCTOR KEVIN NEMETHY: Okay. So what kind of things could happen?

NATALIE: He's not having a heart attack. He’s high and falls down in the ambulance bay where Dr. Nemethy and two paramedics try to get him to come back inside.

DOCTOR KEVIN NEMETHY: You just fell over, okay? We’re just trying to make sure you’re okay.

MAN: I’m fine.

NATALIE CLANCY: The patient leaves before the hospital social worker is able to intervene and refer him to a new rapid access program to get treatment for addiction, which Nemethy says is the biggest missing link in BC's response to the fentanyl crisis.

DOCTOR KEVIN NEMETHY: We have a significant difficulty getting patients interested in drug and alcohol rehab into beds from the emergency department. There is often a significant delay, so what we feel that does is put the patients at risk of a relapse, where they continue to use until they get into a rehab kind of scenario.

NATALIE CLANCY: As his shift ends, he is grateful this time, every single overdose patient survived. They don't always. The youngest he lost was 15.

DOCTOR KEVIN NEMETHY: It was, what we call a post-arrest patient, so a patient who had arrested, in the context probably of an overdose, who we had temporarily gotten back. But I did have to talk to the parents and family and let them know that the prognosis was incredibly poor and that their child probably wouldn't survive. And unfortunately, that child did go on to pass away. There's nothing harder in our job and there’s nothing harder, I think, in life to have to tell someone that their loved one is probably not going to make it.

[Sound: Ambulance sirens and dispatch]

PC: That documentary was produced by CBC's Natalie Clancey and edited by CBC's Alison Cook. Congtrats to Natalie and the CBC team they have since received awards for their coverage of the financial crisis and see more of it. Check out our website cbc.ca/thecurrent.

[Music]

PC: Well, that is our program for today stay tuned to CBC Radio One for The Disruptors, that is our summer show featuring highlights from The Current project of the past season. Today's episode disrupting injustice. Hear the last surviving Nuremberg prosecutor, Benjamin Ferencz, explain why he fights for peace and justice against enormous odds.

SOUNDCLIP

BENJAMIN FERENCZ: The real answer to the problem is to end warmaking. I know how difficult that is. I know that we have for centuries glorified war. I was a combat soldier when I got an honorable discharge and have to the war depending on you. Awarded me five battle stars. I said once that I wasn't a hero. And I said Well you survived the five major battles of the war. I didn't think it was heroic. It was terrible. That is the current system. When the heads of state are unable to agree. Well that is absolute crazy. That's manslaughter and murder it's horrible it's stupid and that's the system under which we live under a system of making war. And I say we've got to change it. I don't think that's a radical thing. Not only do we have to cease this changing but we have to try and to a rule of law which holds accountable those who are responsible for these killings, and hold them accountable and Criminal Court, and hold them accountable financially for ruining the countries by having these current arms races when they are racing each other to make more and more weapons capable of killing more and more people, and they don't have any money left to take care of the people to keep alive. And this seems to be outrageous thing.

PC: That's Benjamin Ferencz the last surviving Nuremberg prosecutors. And you will hear more from him from him coming up next on The Disrupters with host Anna Maria Tremonti. Remember you can always take The Current with you to go on the CBC Radio app. It lets you browse through past episodes of our show and it lets you start listening in just a few seconds. You can search for stories you missed or want to share or listen live to your local CBC station, right from your smartphone or tablet. It is free from the App Store or Google Play. Now, as you heard earlier a lot of millennials these days are pushing back against taking the stuff that past generations thought were a treasured family heirlooms. The late comedian George Carlin had a lot of stuff to say about stuff. And so we will leave you on this Friday with the great George Carlin and his stuff from 1986. I am Piya Chattopadhyay. Thank you for letting your ear here on the summer edition of The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

GEORGE CARLIN: I would have been out here a little bit sooner but they gave me the wrong dressing room and I couldn't find any place to put my stuff. And I don't know how you are but I need a place to put my stuff. So, that's what I've been going back to just trying to find a place for my stuff. You know how important that is. That's the whole - That's the whole meaning of life isn't it trying to find a place for your stuff. That's all your house is. Your house is just a place for your stuff. If you didn't have so much stuff, you wouldn't need a house. [Laughter] You could just walk around all the time. That's all your house is it's a pile of stuff with a cover on it. You see that when you take off in an airplane and you look down you see everybody's got a little pile of stuff. Everybody's got their own pile of stuff. And when you leave your stuff you've got to lock it up. We don't want somebody to come by and take some stuff. They always take the good stuff. [Laughter] They don't bother with that crap you're saving. And nobody interested in your fourth grade arithmetic papers. They are looking for the good stuff. That's all your house is. It's a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff. [Laughter] Now sometimes, sometimes you've got to move. You've got to get a bigger house. Why? Too much stuff. [Laughter] You've got to move all your stuff. And maybe put some stuff in storage. I imagine that there's a whole industry based on keeping an eye on your stuff. Enough about your stuff. Let's talk about other people's stuff. Did you ever notice when you go to somebody else's house you never quite feel 100 percent at home. You know why. No room for your stuff. Somebody else's stuff is all over the place. And what awful stuff it is. Where did they get this stuff. And if you have to stay overnight at someone's house you know unexpectedly and they give you a little room to sleep in that they don't use that often. Someone died in it eleven years ago. [Laughter] And they haven't moved any of his stuff.

[Music: Theme]

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August 25, 2017 Full Episode Transcript

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