'Disregard for human life is disturbing': Addressing the opioid crisis in London, Ont.

The Middlesex-London Paramedic Service (MPLS) has responded to 148 opioid related overdoses so far in 2022 — with 25 incidents in the first six days of April alone.

It is evident there is an ongoing opioid crisis facing the City of London and officials say it will take time and money to address concerns.

The director of harm reduction services with regional HIV/Aids connection, Sonja Burke wants to address common misconceptions that surround mental health and drug addiction.

“People don’t wake up and say, ‘hey this is the life I would like to have. I would like to be homeless, I would like to use substances.’ Like that is not how this happens,” says Burke.

Carepoint is a provincially funded service that allows supervised consumption of illicit substances. It’s intended to prevent overdose, reduce the spread of infectious disease and increase access to health and social services.

Burke says concerns by local area tenants and business owners are not necessarily a result of Carepoint, but rather a city-wide issue.

“The picture is much bigger you know. We have hospital beds shutting down, we have funding limitations, so all these things are creating the perfect storm, for challenges across our community,” she says.

Ward 13 Coun. John Fyfe-Millar agrees.

“It would be unfair to take the challenges for instance that we have right now on Dundas Place and blame them on the safe consumption site,” he says. “Those challenges, in my opinion, are challenges that have come over the past two decades in the changes that we're dealing with health care and dealing with mental health and dealing with addiction.”

Burke admits that recent developments, including a new building going up next to the site, have limited access for those using the services and created poor lighting and some security concerns for area residents.

But she adds, they’ve always been committed to ensuring safety around the facility, such as security patrolling the area 12 hours a day, seven days a week.

“We are fatigued by having to advocate for what is ethically the right thing to do, you know …the actual disregard for human life is disturbing,” says Burke.

Fyfe-Millar says plans are in place to make sure that when the consumption site moves to it’s permanent location on York Street later this year, it’s respective of the fact that it’s in a community. He wants to stress that the concerns around supervised consumption sites will not go away overnight.

"It has taken us two decades right now to get to where we are today,” he says. “The plan in place to deal with mental health and addiction simply is not working for communities."

Burke says that harm reduction services are about incremental gains and that success is measured on a case-to-case basis.

“When a person over doses and we bring them and we are able to revive them we are able to support them, that is a success, so every time a person walks in our doors, it’s a success,” says Burke.