Source: The Canadian Press – Broadcast wire
Jun 13, 2017
VANCOUVER – Health Minister Jane Philpott says the number of opioid overdoses in Canada is going to get worse before it gets better.
She has told the National Health Leadership Conference in Vancouver that British Columbia is “ground zero” because the crisis claimed 935 lives in the province last year.
Philpott said the complex problem of substance use is rooted in social issues such as poverty, homelessness and unresolved trauma, so combating the epidemic will require a patient-centred approach
The Public Health Agency of Canada released figures last week saying nearly 25-hundred people died of opioid-related overdoses in 2016, though Philpott said the information is incomplete.
She told health-care managers that patients need to be treated without judgment and discrimination and their health records must follow them wherever they get care, regardless of whether they have a fixed address.
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(The Canadian Press)
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