Vancouver Coastal Health’s Overdose Outreach Team is looking to strengthen its presence on the North Shore.
The health authority announced Friday that it was in the process of recruiting two additional outreach workers for Richmond and the North Shore, expanding its service aimed at helping people who have recently overdosed, or are at risk of overdosing, seek support and resources.
“The North Shore isn’t isolated from the rest of the region in terms of the overdose crisis,” said Misty Bath, manager of the Overdose Outreach Team. “I think we’re all aware the overdose crisis is an unrelenting crisis, it’s impacting all regions of the health authority and people from all walks of life and really the North Shore isn’t any different.”
The current team is made up of four outreach workers and three social workers who liaison with people who have recently experienced an overdose or remain at-risk due to substance use.
“Our main goal is to connect with them, determine what their goals are in their lives and then connect them to appropriate health and social services,” Bath said.
Numbers released from the BC Coroners Service last week indicate 134 suspected drug overdose deaths in B.C. for the month of July, with the opiate fentanyl accounting for the substantial increase in illicit drug overdose deaths in the last many years.
The Overdose Outreach Team has been operating since May 2017, an offshoot of a Mobile Medical Unit that was situated in the Downtown Eastside in 2016 amid the then growing opioid crisis.
Since starting as a standalone unit, the Overdose Outreach Team has connected with 932 people, noted a release from VCH.
The current team has been mainly situated in Vancouver while still serving other municipalities under the health authority’s jurisdiction. Having an outreach worker operating solely in North and West Vancouver will allow the team to better serve the North Shore region overall, according to Bath.
“This is just a natural extension of the conversations that we were having with leaders on the North Shore on how we can embed resources or provide resources that make sense for a North Shore context, knowing that the North Shore context does look different than Vancouver,” Bath said.
Resources specific to the North Shore include the HealthConnection Clinic, the Stepping Stones Concurrent Disorders Service, and the Foundry North Shore centre, said Bath, noting that while the North Shore is already doing a good job responding to the opioid epidemic, the challenge for many people affected by opioids can be navigating the complexities of the health-care system.
“We really do work in a very complicated health-care system,” Bath said. “We often have barriers to access. … Sometimes what really helps is having an advocate that can present a range of options that can work for your unique situation and then having them actually available to sometimes even physically help navigate through those services, through the front doors of those services, which can be a daunting experience for some people based on their history.”
People seeking treatment for opioid-use disorder, or friends and family concerned about an individual, can contact the Overdose Outreach Team from Monday to Friday between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Messages can be left anytime at 604-360-2874.
