‘No one’s listening’: As opioid-related deaths surge in Canada, advocates say there’s little gov’t support

published on May 21, 2021 in CBC - The Current

Zoe Dodd knows how painful it is to lose someone to the opioid crisis. In the past week and half alone, three people she knew died of an overdose. 

The Toronto-based harm reduction worker said she’s been so traumatized by the opioid crisis this past year that she had to take three months off of work.

“The overwhelming nature of the grief and the just complete abandonment of people that have to respond to this crisis, as well as COVID and the housing disaster … really took a toll on me,” said Dodd, who works with the Toronto Overdose Prevention Society.

“There’s no time to heal because then somebody else, you know, dies, and no one’s listening to us. We’re just, like, in these trenches screaming, yelling for many years now.”

According to a new report released Wednesday, opioid-related deaths in Ontario have increased by 76 per cent over the last year. A total of 2,050 people died between mid-March and December of 2020, compared to 1,162 during the same period in 2019, the report found…