A pilot project is underway at the emergency department at St Paul’s Hospital in downtown Vancouver, where overdose patients are given a take-away packs of medication aimed at warding off withdrawal symptoms and getting them into treatment to prevent deaths from tainted opioids.
The treatment package has three days worth of a drug called Suboxone, which has been used in the hospital’s ER for a few years.
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Dr. Andrew Kestler, a co-lead of the program at St. Paul’s Hospital, says patients need to be in a high degree of opioid withdrawal to start treatment.
“For most sort of short-acting opioids, it’s about 12 hours from the last use.”
He says when patients come in for opioid addiction or withdrawal symptoms, they get the kit.
“They get the to-go pack, they get some instructions how to start it, some instructions on which clinics to follow up in.”
Kestler says previously only 25 per cent of those would actually show up to a clinic when referred, and they hope the take-away doses will make it easier for opioid-addicted patients to seek treatment and ultimately save lives.
The hospital is the first in Canada to provide this treatment.
The two-year pilot project will be evaluated by the BC Centre on Substance Use in the province, which has the highest number of overdose deaths in Canada.
— With files from The Canadian Press
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