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Last year, more than 200 people died of a drug overdose in Surrey.
According to statistics released by the BC Coroner Service on Thursday (February 7th), 210 people died in Surrey as a result of an illicit drug overdose in 2018. Across the province, 1,489 people died from 39, a drug overdose.
That's about more than one person who dies every two days in the city.
Surrey was only surpbaded by Vancouver, which recorded 382 overdose deaths in 2018.
Judy Darcy, Minister of Mental Health and Addiction, said at the announcement of the Roshni Clinic's extension, intended to help members of the South Asian community suffering from drug addiction a "horribly high" number of people died from an overdose in 2018.
"Earlier today, the B.C. Coroner's Office announced that 1,489 people died last year from an unintentional overdose caused by poisonous street drugs; 1,489 people, let that number flow for a minute. Five hundred of those people died here at Fraser Health, 210 in Surrey, "Darcy said.
"We can never lose sight of the fact that these numbers represent real people and families who are devastated by their loss. families here in Surrey and British Columbia, and my heart is torn apart for the families who have suffered this loss and continue to be a direct result of this poisonous and relentless drug crisis. "
Addressing BC journalists in Legislature in Victoria, Lisa Lapointe, Chief Coroner for the province, called the supply of street drugs unpredictable and unmanageable.
"With nearly 1,500 deaths in BC in 2018, overdoses of illicit drugs far exceed the number of people who die from motor vehicle incidents, homicides and suicides," he said. she said.
"Innovative and evidence-based approaches are needed if we are to bring significant change and stop the dying. We must be willing to do things differently to save lives. "
According to data compiled in toxicology reports, fentanyl was detected in 85% of deaths last year, up from 82% in 2017.
Nearly five times more men than women died.
Also for the second year, not a single death occurred at an overdose prevention site or at a safe consumption site.
Darcy said the provincial government has "intensified its response to this overdose every month, every week, every day," including strengthening the distribution of naloxone in British Columbia. and the number of overdose prevention and safe consumption sites has "almost doubled".
"To date, we have received more than one million visits to these overdose prevention and safe consumption sites in British Columbia. Thousands of overdoses were canceled and there was not a single death. "
Darcy also said the BC According to Center for Disease Control, an estimated 4,800 more people would have died from overdoses since the start of the crisis "if that had not been done thanks to these efforts that saved lives."
In 2017, 178 people died in Surrey because of an overdose of illicit drugs.
– With records of Ashley Wadhwani, Tom Fletcher
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