KELOWNA – Kelowna resident Shadia Doty sits on her living room sofa thinking what she would say to her younger brother Ryan Turgeon if she had just one more moment with him.
“I would just tell him that I love him,” says Doty.
The Kelowna woman’s 32-year-old sibling passed away suddenly just weeks ago.
“He was found on February 1 unresponsive and passed away at home where he was living with my parents,” says Doty.
“It was an accidental overdose and the cause was fentanyl, but he was also using heroine.”
However, Doty says Turgeon, who spent the majority of his working life overseas on offshore drilling rigs, also struggled with mental health issues.
“Two years ago he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and he was self-medicating with drugs,” says Doty.
Doty says her brother’s mental health problems and the fact that he often worked overseas made it difficult for the family to know what was going on or how to help.
“If Ryan was using drugs, we didn’t know. Especially when a mental illness is involved, it’s hard. So, I just want to urge people to look for signs,” says Doty.
Doty says she wants to try and prevent any other family from having to go through what hers is dealing with.
“It’s been horrible. To this day, I still can’t believe that it’s happened and it’s going to take a long time for us to get over this,” says Doty.
Doty says she’s making it her mission to educate people on the dangers of using drugs.
“I just want for my brother not to be just a statistic, I want people to know that he was just successful, educated and so smart but drugs really do take everything from you,” says Doty.
In fact, drug experts say fentanyl can be 50 to 100 times more toxic than other narcotics.
“It is very potent, it acts very quickly and because of that it is very dangerous,” says Dr. Trevor Corneil, Chief Medical Health Officer.
The B.C. Coroners Service says that across the province last year, there were 146 deaths where fentanyl was either detected alone or in combination with other drugs. Of those, 17 deaths were in the Interior and 10 were in the Okanagan.
The number of deaths in the valley have been increasing, with fatal overdoses being reported every couple of weeks.
“Everytime we hear about another family it is yet another tragedy and for Interior Health, it’s really about what we can do to help and improve, not just health overall in the population but prevent these overdose deaths,” says Corneil.
One of the questions being asked now is whether there should be a safe injection site in the valley.
“The implementation of safe injection sites when combined with treatment centres does save lives,” says Corneil.
Interior Health may be ready to take a formal safe injection site proposal to the public in the coming months, but Corneil it’s still unknown whether one will be approved.
“I wouldn’t be surprised as Chief Medical Health Officer, and I’d certainly be supportive if that was the case,” says Corneil.
Meanwhile, as Doty and her family grive their loss, she has a message.
“I would urge all young people and anybody contemplating medicating with drugs to not do it because this is just something that no family should ever have to go through.”
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