B.C. updates access to life-saving medication for people at risk of toxic drug poisoning
Government is urgently working to expand access to mental-health and addictions care, including increasing early intervention and prevention, harm reduction, treatment and recovery services, complex-care housing and more.
EARLY INTERVENTION AND PREVENTION
Foundry centres
Foundry is a provincial network of integrated youth centres and virtual supports that offers free and confidential counselling, primary care, sexual health, and substance-use services to young people, from 12-24 years and their families.
There are 16 Foundry centres open throughout the province:
- Vancouver-Granville
- North Shore (North Vancouver)
- Campbell River
- Ridge Meadows
- Abbotsford
- Kelowna
- Prince George
- Victoria
- Penticton
- Terrace
- Comox Valley
- Langley
- Richmond
- Cariboo-Chilcotin (Williams Lake)
- Sea to Sky (Squamish)
- Port Hardy
An additional nine Foundry centres are in development in Burns Lake, East Kootenay (Cranbrook), Surrey, Fort St. John, Sunshine Coast, Tri-Cities, Kamloops, Vernon and Powell River (qathet). Ten more locations will be announced.
In 2022-23, Foundry centres supported 14,987 young people throughout B.C. for a total of 65,185 visits. In addition, Foundry Virtual supported 2,580 young people in 2022-23.
Integrated child and youth teams
Integrated Child and Youth (ICY) teams help to fill gaps in mental-health and substance-use care, bringing together multidisciplinary teams and removing roadblocks to deliver better care. On the ground, these teams help families navigate services and provide mental-health and substance-use supports for children and youth.
The Province committed $55 million to implement teams in 20 school districts by 2024 to be fully operational by 2025. ICY teams are currently operating in these school districts: Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows, Comox Valley, Richmond, Coast Mountains (Terrace and Hazelton) and Okanagan-Similkameen (Oliver, Keremeos). Seven more school district communities have ICY teams in development: Mission, Fraser-Cascade (Hope, Agassiz-Harrison), Kootenay-Columbia (Castlegar-Trail), Nanaimo-Ladysmith, Okanagan-Shuswap (Salmon Arm), Pacific Rim (Port Alberni) and qathet (Powell River) and eight more communities are set to be announced.
TREATMENT and RECOVERY
The B.C. government has prioritized making new treatment and recovery beds available to those who need them, with 587 new publicly funded adult and youth (67 youth beds) substance-use treatment beds opened since 2017, and more planned. There are now 3,596 publicly funded adult and youth (170 youth publicly funded youth beds) substance-use treatment beds throughout the province.
In 2022-2023, 4,167 people were helped through bed-based treatment and supportive recovery services.
Government is also rolling out Road to Recovery, a new model of seamless care to support people through their entire recovery journey from detox to treatment to aftercare.
Substance-use services for young people
There is nothing more important than keeping young people safe, and that starts with education on the dangers of toxic drugs.
To complement bed-based services, the Province made a historic investment in 33 new and expanded youth substance-use services starting in 2021-22. These provide a range of supports to meet the unique needs of each youth served, including wrapround supports, school and community-based prevention and early intervention resources, community-based youth substance-use treatment and recovery services, and crisis intervention services.
A youth-focused campaign on the illicit poisoned drug supply has recently been launched that provides information about drug use, as well as resources to help parents have frank, non-judgmental conversations with their kids about drug use and its dangers. Having these early conversations is key to preventing problematic substance-use before it starts.
Urgent and primary care centres
Mental-health and addiction supports can be found at urgent and primary care centres in 31 locations across B.C. where clinicians are available 365 days per year for same-day access. Primary care networks build a team of professionals around patients and their needs and improve access to early interventions for people experiencing mild-to-moderate mental-health and addictions challenges, and to more specialized supports when needed.
There are currently 68 primary care networks in B.C., with a targeted total of 99 networks by the end of 2024-25.
Opioid agonist treatment
Opioid agonist treatment (OAT) is the preferred initial treatment option for people with opioid addiction. The number of people dispensed opioid agonist treatment in November 2023 was 24,377. The number of clinicians prescribing any form of opioid agonist treatment increased from 773 in June 2017 to 2,042 in November 2023. Access has also been significantly expanded through rapid access to addictions care clinics in all health regions, so more people can access the care they need, where and when they need it.
Prescribers
To increase the number of clinicians who can prescribe medications for opioid-use disorder, particularly in rural and remote parts of the province, registered nurses (RNs) and registered psychiatric nurses (RPNs) can complete training to begin prescribing opioid agonist treatment. In November 2021, the British Columbia Centre on Substance Use (BCCSU) launched training to enable RN and RPN prescribers to offer OAT. As of December 2023, 272 RNs and RPNs from all health authorities have enrolled and 167 have completed their training. In December 2023, 560 patients received an OAT prescription from an RN or RPN prescribers.
HARM REDUCTION
Prescribed alternatives
B.C. is the first jurisdiction to offer provincewide prescribed safer supply.
People have been accessing prescribed safer supply since March 2020, when the Province introduced the first phase of the program. In the month of November 2023, 4,265 people were dispensed opioid prescribed alternatives. In November 2023, 4,265 people were dispensed opioid prescribed. Between March 2020 and July 2022, more than 14,000 have accessed any form of prescribed safer supply, and of those, over 10,000 have been prescribed an opioid.
Overdose prevention and supervised consumption services
Government is expanding access to overdose prevention services that offer observed inhalation services in communities hardest hit by the drug-poisoning crisis.
The number of overdose prevention services sites has significantly increased: from one site in 2016 to 50 as of December 2023, including 22 sites offering inhalation services. In the month of December 2023, there were 74,094 visits to overdose prevention services and supervised consumption sites of which 44,588 visits were for inhalation overdose prevention and supervised consumption services.
Drug-checking services
There are a number of drug-checking services throughout the province to help people learn what is detected in the substances they are taking to reduce the risk of drug poisoning and connect them to supportive services.
Throughout British Columbia, 110 locations have opened where people can drop off a drug sample for analysis; 50 of these offers immediate point-of-care testing with FTIR spectrometer on some days of the week. The expansion of sample collection sites reduces rural inequities and improve access to drug-checking services for more British Columbians.
There are currently 21 Fourier Transform Infrared spectrometers for drug checking operating in B.C.: Fraser Health (two); Interior Health (seven); Northern Health (two); Island Health (six); Vancouver Coastal Health (four). In addition, there are three Fourier Transform Infrared instruments owned by the BC Centre on Substance Use.
Lifeguard app
The free app helps save lives by automatically connecting people who use drugs to first responders if the user becomes unresponsive. As of Dec. 31, 2023, the app had been used more than 130,500 times by approximately 30,000 app users. To date, no drug-poisoning deaths have been reported through the app. Lifeguard also provides drug alerts. The free app helps save lives by automatically connecting people who use drugs to first responders if the user becomes unresponsive.
Take-home naloxone kits
As of December 2023, more than two million kits have been shipped and 159,310 have been reported as used to reverse a drug poisoning. The kits are available at more than 2,252 locations, including 877 community pharmacies in B.C.
COMPLEX CARE HOUSING
Complex care housing provides people with very complex mental-health and addiction challenges a cohesive system of supports that address the health, housing, cultural and social needs of the individual. The service model aims to support people through transitions, such as aging out of government care, entering or leaving the criminal justice system, or after they have been engaged in facility or hospital-based care.
Since January 2022, the Province has announced complex-care housing services in Abbotsford, Bella Coola, Chilliwack, Cranbrook, Kamloops, Kelowna, Langley, Maple Ridge, Nanaimo, North Shore, Powell River, Prince George, Richmond, Sunshine Coast, Surrey, Terrace, Vancouver and Victoria.
As of Jan. 1, 2024, services are in place for as many as 385 people.
DECRIMINALIZATION
B.C. is the first province to receive a three-year exemption from the federal government to remove criminal penalties for people who possess small amounts of illicit drugs for personal use.
Decriminalizing people who use drugs reduces the fear and shame that keeps people silent and leads so many to hide their drug use and avoid treatment and support. Reducing the stigma of drug use is a vital part of B.C.’s work to build a comprehensive system of mental-health and substance-use care. Decriminalization became effective Jan. 31, 2023. The Province is continuing to work with a broad cross-section of partners to implement and monitor this policy.