B.C.’s top doctor to update opioid crisis 1 year after declaring public health emergency

Nearly a year after declaring a public health emergency in the midst of a skyrocketing number of overdose deaths, B.C.’s chief medical officer will be providing an update on the opioid crisis Wednesday morning. 

Dr. Perry Kendall will be speaking before Vancouver City Council about the latest on the overdose crisis in the province. 

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Kendall will be joined by Dr. Patricia Daly, Chief Medical Officer of Vancouver Coastal Health, to outline actions taken by the province and Vancouver Coastal Health to tackle the crisis. 

READ MORE: Memorial wall for overdose victims erected on DTES

There were 914 overdose deaths in B.C. in 2016, an increase of almost 80 per cent over the number of deaths in 2015 (510).

The latest numbers released by the BC Coroners Service for February show there were 102 suspected drug overdose deaths, an equivalent of about 3.6 deaths per day. The February number is nearly 73 per cent than for the same month last year.