Overdose prevention services on Vancouver Island have been seeing heavy use.
That’s according to Island Health, who announced that more than 250,000 visits to supervised consumption and overdose prevention sites have been recorded, along with more than 1,000 reversed overdoses and zero deaths.
Since December of 2016, the health authority has opened up nine overdose prevention sites and supervised consumption sites, where people who use drugs can do so under the supervision of trained staff.
Communities with the sites include Campbell River, Duncan, Courtenay, Nanaimo, Port Alberni, and Victoria, with an average of 3,250 sites made per week.
In the Duncan area, there were 15 overdose deaths in 2016, 18 in 2017, and 31 in 2018.
73 per cent of those were men, while 27 per cent were women.
