The province is accelerating an expansion of a controversial program where people who are addicted to opioids receive a clean supply of drugs via the province’s health-care system.
In a telephone interview, B.C.’s minister of mental health and addictions, Judy Darcy, said the goal is to see injectable hydromorphone—a drug very similar to heroin—available in all five of B.C.’s health authorities as soon as possible.
“We want to get this life-saving treatment into people’s hands,” she told the Straight. “It’s a critical alternative for people for whom first-line therapies don’t work…and I’m pressing as hard as I can to improve access.”
Darcy said she has assigned the task to B.C.’s new Overdose Emergency Response Centre, which was announced for Vancouver General Hospital on December 1.
“It’s modelled after a traditional emergency management structure,” she noted. “That’s going to really accelerate everything we’re doing across the board for the overdose crisis.”
