For the first time in years, the number of people who died due to toxic drug poisonings in Penticton dropped in 2023.
The year marked the first time, outside of 2020 and the start of the pandemic, that the number of deaths didn’t increase or stay the same since 2015.
After a record number of deaths in 2022 and 2021, which saw 30 and 27 deaths respectively, 2023 saw 22 deaths, just one more than in 2019 according to statistics from the BC Coroners Service.
Getting to this point was a community effort that took multiple organizations and groups working together, according to Desiree Surkowski, the founder and executive director of Penticton Overdose Prevention Society (POPS).
“I’m very happy that we’re seeing less death,” Surkowski told the Western on Jan. 26. “I’ve lost a lot of people in the last five years of my life that I really cherish. But I’m still saddened because it’s not 30 this year, but it’s still 22 people that have passed away this year whose families are grieving.
“Yes, we’re on a good trajectory, but now is the time to kind of figure out why we’re on that trajectory.”
Trying to nail down what is working is a difficult task, made harder by the fact that not every option works for every individual. Surkowski noted that it’s not just POPS, but other organizations like the ASK Wellness Society that are also working to help save lives in the community.
Recent strides across a broader range of options have helped, from more funding for recovery programs and continuing care to abstinence programs to harm reduction efforts.
But there is still more work that needs to be done at multiple levels of government, from the local level all the way up.
“We personally would like to see more consistent overdose prevention sites in our community,” said Surowski. “We operate from a bus and we don’t have a stable location. We’d like to have a one-stop-shop of OPS service and hygiene center to fill in some of those gaps.”
At the higher level, Surkowski hopes to see a better-educated change to legislation around safe supply to be both more accurate in name and more effective in action.
“When we think of safe supply, we think of the actual substance people are wired to being given to them in prescription form,” said Surkowski. What they’re doing right now is prescribing a lot of hydromorphone and this just isn’t sufficient for people who have really hard wires to fentanyl or benzodiazepines.”
In the end, efforts to help reduce overdose deaths in the community require support from that same community.
“I think it’s really important to reiterate that this work is hard and the people doing this work are grieving the loss of their friends while trying to save future ones.
“The community support we’ve received so far has been amazing, but there are still a lot of people in this community who are against us and say really hurtful things like, “let them die”, “they’re not worth it”. It makes the work harder when you feel like you’re fighting a losing battle to begin with and then have people really disregard the work you’re doing.
“So if you know anyone who does this work and if you know anyone who’s trying to stop their loved ones from dying, support them and support the work and support the community.”