A parent’s worse nightmare became a reality for Brian Bohdanowich and Evonne Heighton.
“We lost our son in April 2015 to an overdose,” Bohdanowich said. “He was over at some friend’s place just two doors down from us and he ended up dying.”
Their son had just turned 18 when his life was cut short due to a lethal experimental mix of prescription drugs.
“It’s destroying a lot of young people’s lives. Two young people that we knew died, including our son,” Bohdanowich said.
Brian and Evonne say their son was left unresponsive and wasn’t checked on until hours later, when it was too late.
“They tried waking him up but they didn’t call an ambulance or anything when he threw up on himself. They just cleaned him up and put a blanket over him but he ended up dying,” Bohdanowich said.
The heart-broken parents were walking down Gottingen Street Wednesday morning when they noticed people taping signs to the exterior walls of Direction 180, a community based methadone clinic.
Get weekly health news
The messages on the signs struck a chord in their hearts.
“These messages mean there’s hope other families may not have to go through what we are,” Bohdanowich said.
Dozens of signs were written and posted by clients and front-line support workers from two harm reduction clinics in Halifax.
Messages like: “Don’t judge us, help us” were held in the air with pride, marking International Overdose Awareness Day.
READ MORE: Direction 180 methadone clinic in financial trouble, can’t accept new clients
“I’ve lost a lot of friends over the years – more then I can count really – and when I was using, I had people overdose in front of me and some of them have passed away. So I think bringing attention to this day lets people know that there’s a face to the disease and that these people matter,” Natasha Touesnard, an outreach and peer support worker at Direction 180 and Mainline Needle Exchange said.
Touesnard is in recovery and now works to support those who are battling the same disease she did: addiction.
“I think that people in general look down on drug addiction instead of facing it as a health issue, which it is, and so people become socially stigmatized and are unable to get the supports,” Touesnard said.
Direction 180 and the Mainline Needle Exchange are two harm reduction agencies in Halifax. They support hundreds of people battling addictions everyday.
Direction 180 has nearly 500 people in its methadone program and says, due to under-funding, has over 60 people waiting to access support.
Comments
Want to discuss? Please read our Commenting Policy first.