AN INVISIBLE EPIDEMIC

If three people were injured in house fires every day in Ottawa,
there would be a public outcry. The same can't be said for drug overdoses.

Paramedics respond to more than 1,200 overdose calls every year in
Ottawa -- that's about three a day. Yet there is little public
reaction and virtually no debate about how to reduce harm from drug
use, something experts say is a growing problem in the city.

An event last week underlined the extent of drug use in the city. To
mark International Overdose Awareness Day, 40 empty shoe boxes were
placed at the Human Rights Monument. Each shoebox represented a
person who has died of a drug overdose. The event shone a spotlight
on an issue that is often ignored or misunderstood, even as it
appears to be getting worse.

Rob Boyd, of Oasis, a program aimed at drug users with HIV or
Hepatitis C, who helped organize the event said drug overdose deaths
have hit a crisis point in Ottawa in recent years. Oasis is hoping to
prevent some of those deaths by helping people understand the signs
of an overdose and when to get help.

Education for drug users is important as are better treatment
facilities to help them kick addictions, but the public health effort
should not end there. Drug use and abuse is a health issue that
affects the entire community, as the growing number of overdoses in
the city and Ottawa's sharply rising HIV rates indicate, and it is in
the public interest to reduce the harm done by drug use.

One way to target the growing abuse of prescription opiates and
narcotics is to introduce electronic health records. In provinces
with electronic health records, it is more difficult for addicts to
get access to such drugs. Premier Dalton McGuinty's attempt to set up
a badly needed electronic health records program has been incredibly
slow and marred by overspending and incompetence -- a costly failure.
Whichever party is in power at Queen's Park after the election should
make electronic health records a priority, in order to make a dent in
prescription drug abuse, among numerous other reasons.

But there must also be a concerted effort to reduce the harm done by
drug use. Dr. Mark Tyndall, the former colead investigator of
Vancouver's safe-injection site, has recently begun work as the head
of infectious diseases at the Ottawa Hospital. One day a week he
works at the Ottawa Mission treating people with HIV. Among his first
impressions of Ottawa was that there are a lot of drug overdoses in
the city, by people using drugs "in dangerous places, by themselves."
Not only does that mean people are dying, but also that Ottawa has
one of the highest HIV transmission rates in the country.

The Harper government's long-standing attempts to close Vancouver's
controversial safe injection site have made other communities less
likely to push for one. And that is unfortunate.

Vancouver's safe injection site, which is the only one in Canada, has
been credited with reducing overdose deaths and HIV transmission
rates in that city. Ottawa needs a similar public-health approach to
improve a problem that can no longer be ignored.