Pubdate: Wed, 21 Sep 2016
Source: Northumberland Today (CN ON)
Copyright: 2016 Sun Media
Contact: http://www.northumberlandtoday.com/letters
Website: http://www.northumberlandtoday.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5003
Author: Valerie MacDonald
Page: A1

HEALTH UNIT TO DEVELOP REGIONAL DRUG STRATEGY

A new coordinator has been hired to help develop a regional drug
strategy, says the area medical officer of health (MOH).

Dr. Lynn Noseworthy, the MOH of the Haliburton Kawartha Pine Ridge
District Health Unit, provided some information about the strategy to
the health unit board during its most recent meeting in Port Hope.

Coordinator Charles Shamess started work with the group this summer,
the health unit's local drug strategy spokesperson Krista Skutovich
stated in an e-mail.

The $285,000 Trillium grant covers three years and "is for the
development of a local drug strategy

including hiring a coordinator for our region, hosting consultations,
and initiating some project work with partners, to address issues
related to drug use in Northumberland, Kawartha Lakes and Haliburton.

"Four partners came together to submit the application on behalf of
the HKPR Region-Wide Drug Strategy group (a group of community
partners formed a few years ago to look at how we could better work
together to address issues related to drugs in H ali burton, City of K
aw art ha Lakes and Northumberland). The four partners on the Trillium
application are HKPR District Health Unit, Kawartha Lakes Police
Services, FourCAST and PARN," she stated.

The goal of the strategy is to"reduce the harm associated with drug
use" in the tri-county area building on recommendations related to
prevention, treatment, enforcement and harm reduction," Skutovich also
stated. "Having a local drug strategy will ensure coordination of
efforts and consistency of approaches used, will improve communication
between, and opportunities for, involvement from multiple stakeholders
over a wide geography, and enable the region to better respond to
evolving drug trends and harms together as a community."

Asked whether the strategy is to focus on street drugs or misuse of
prescription drugs, she stated that is still to be determined.

Development of the strategy "will include extensive community
consultation with partners, service providers, general public,
policy-makers, those with lived drug experience, youth, and more, to
determine where the most need is. That said, many partners have
already been involved in local initiatives related to Fentanyl and
Naloxone - probably the two biggest current concerns related to
individual and community harms from drug use. Fentanyl, and bootleg
fentanyl, has been all over the news as an emerging crisis in the US
and Western Canada, blamed for skyrocketing rates of opioid overdose
deaths there.

"Naloxone is the emergency medicine that is used to temporarily
reverse the side effects of an opioid overdose, and we have partners
working in HKPR to distribute this life-saving medication to those who
need it."

There is also a Fentanyl Patch program in all three counties where
users bring in an empty patch to get a replacement, both she and the
MOH said.

There are upwards of 50 groups involved n the strategy including fire
and police, treatment centres, youth groups and social services.

Consultations will be set up and information will be released about
how to get involved.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Matt