Manitoba health minister hopes summit gives better fix on opioid crisis – CP

Source: The Canadian Press
Nov 15, 2016

WINNIPEG _ Manitoba’s health minister says a national strategy is needed to halt the flow of powdered fentanyl into Canada from such countries as China.

Kelvin Goertzen’s comment Monday comes days before a national opioid conference and summit in Ottawa.

The minister says there’s a need at the provincial level to get a better fix on the extent of the opioid crisis, pointing to an inconsistency in reporting overdoses.

Goertzen also says Manitoba has concerns about the federal Liberals’ election promise to legalize recreational marijuana.

A federal task force report on legalization is due later this month and the Liberals have said they plan a strict regulatory framework for the production and distribution of legal pot.

The national opioid conference and summit begins Friday.

Goertzen spoke at a press conference at the legislature to mark addictions awareness week, which included some of Manitoba’s leading addictions and health officials and the mothers of two victims of fentanyl overdoses.

“We need national strategies around (fentanyl) because it’s an importation issue we need some help with,” said Goertzen. “That’s probably why the federal health minister called the meeting, to have a national strategy.”

Goertzen said the government has learned “anecdotally” from talking to police, paramedics and parents that the problem is significant.

“I don’t know if we realize the depth of the problem, there’s inconsistency in reporting overdoses in provinces, Manitoba being one of them.”

Arlene Last-Kolb and Christine Dobbs _ both of whom lost 24-year-old sons to fentanyl overdoses _ praised the province for speaking up.

“We’ve been trying to make them realize this is an epidemic and they’re starting to recognize they have to work co-operatively and take it seriously,” said Dobbs.

“I believe they’re on the right track,” said Last-Kolb.

Earlier this year, Winnipeg police announced plans to carry kits with the fentanyl antidote naloxone in the aftermath of three overdoses in the city in one week.

“Over the last 10 years, we’re looking at somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 dead people in Canada just from opioid overdoses alone,” Dr. Benedikt Fischer of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health wrote in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. (Winnipeg Free Press)

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