According to the BC Coroner’s Service, Prince George has seen 22 illicit drug deaths so far in 2019.
That’s less than half of last year’s total of 48.
In the province, there were 69 suspected overdose deaths in October, which is a decline of 42% from the same time last year.
Spokesperson, Andy Watson tells MyNechakoValleyNow.com the situation in the Northern Health Region is also on the decline.
“Through the first ten months of 2019, we’ve seen an average of five-point seven deaths per month in the Northern Health Authority, comparing that to 2018, we saw 96 deaths throughout the entire year, we’re down year-over-year in terms of the number of fatal incidents.”
He adds people are still preferring to use drugs alone while at home.
“We do know that people are using while indoors and that may be related to stigma. People not wanting to use in the company of others because they are worried about the stigma associated with that so it’s certainly a possibility and we’ve heard that from people with lived experience before.”
Over the past three years, 155 people living within the Northern Health Region have died at home while overdosing on illicit drugs.
Vancouver Coastal Health Authority has the highest rate of illicit drug toxicity deaths in the province followed by Northern Health.
Fifty-seven deaths have occurred in the Northern Health Authority this year.
Watson adds while he is encouraged by the downward trend, more work still needs to be done.
“We need to continue to take a look at services like supervised consumption sites, overdose prevention sites, drug checking services, the supply of naloxone and a reduction in stigma to really combat this crisis.”
“In chatting with BC Emergency Health Services, they indicated their paramedics are responding to an average of 64 possible overdose or poisoning calls per day in BC so I think what that stresses for us is I think is that despite the drop in the number of fatalities we need to keep our focus on the crisis.”
Of the 823, illicit drug deaths in BC so far this year, 630 of them are men.