More than 200 crosses stand at the corner of Paris and Brady streets in Sudbury, marking lives lost to opioid addiction and highlighting an ongoing crisis in the city.
“The reality is that people are dying from overdoses or experiencing overdoses on a regular basis,” said Sudbury MPP Jaime West.
“Sudbury leads in all of Ontario. Northern Ontario outpaces southern Ontario per capacity. We don’t have the services to address it. This is a crisis around the world, but we need to address it right here in Sudbury.”
Earlier this week, West sent a letter to the Ford Government calling for urgent action for the ongoing health crisis.
But Michael Tibollo, the associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, said finding solutions are not that simple.
“We established the roadmap to wellness in March of 2020. The roadmap very specifically lays out our intentions with the respect to the development of a strategy, of a plan for the province,” he said.
He said having programs in place to support people who have gone through withdrawal management is essential to prevent relapses.
“If a person doesn’t have supports and goes back to the street … and if he uses in a situation where he uses a tainted drug supply or is arrested, we lose to ability then to help that individual,” Tibollo said.
He said investments need to focus on creating what he calls a “continuum of care,” which includes elements such as withdrawal management, addiction treatment beds and transitional housing.
With a continuum of care in place, "we have the greatest chance of success at reducing the amount of time that someone with an acute case has to go start all over again with withdrawal management and repeat the process,” Tibollo said.
For his part, West said he introduced a motion in 2019 asking the government to declare an opioid overdose crisis and a public health emergency in northern Ontario. But it was easily defeated.
“Honestly, if they voted in favour of the motion in 2019, they would have started this movement because the motion would force them actually to get off their wallet and spend the money,” he said.
“I believe that we have people in Sudbury who are ready to expand the services they have and take action. We need the capital investments and the funding and that comes from the government. Talking about what is possible and what needs to happen isn’t the right solution.”
In his letter to the provincial government, West said there was an increase in opioid-related incidents last year according to the local health unit.
Meanwhile, Tibollo said there is an announcement coming soon, but wouldn’t provide any details.
