The number of people dying in the Kamloops area and across B.C. as a result of the overdose crisis remains as bad as it’s ever been.
The BC Coroners Service is reporting today that 184 people lost their lives to a fatal drug overdose in July of 2021. That ties with this past January for the second-most fatal overdoses in any month in this province and is behind only June of 2020, with 186.
In Kamloops, there have now been 35 suspected fatal overdoses as of July 31, 2021, compared to 32 at the end of June. That suggests there were three fatal overdoses in July.
Only Vancouver (286), Surrey (142), Victoria (87), Abbotsford (47) and Burnaby (41) have reported more fatal overdoses this year than Kamloops.
The Thompson-Cariboo health region, which covers Kamloops, reported nine fatal overdoses in July; while that figure is significantly lower than other health regions, the death rate by overdose of 52.9 per 100,000 people in July for the Thompson-Cariboo was the second-highest rate in B.C., behind Vancouver (70.0).
“Those at risk of dying come from all walks of life and live in every part of our province,” chief coroner Lisa Lapointe said.
“If we truly want to save lives, an accessible range of solutions that reflects the breadth and scope of this crisis is urgently needed. This would include drug-checking services, safe consumption sites, meaningful access to life-saving safe supply and the implementation of evidence-based standards of practice for the treatment of problematic substance use.
“The heartbreak being experienced by another five or six more families in our province each and every day cannot continue.”
Today’s coroners service report also says 72 per cent of people who have died from an overdose this year in B.C. were between 30 and 59 years old, while 79 per cent, or almost four in five deaths, were men.
In total, 55 per cent of overdose deaths have happened in people’s homes, while 29 per cent have happened in shelters or temporary housing and 15 per cent happened in vehicles or outside – in places like parks, streets and on sidewalks.
Between January and July, 1,204 British Columbians died of an overdose – the most in the first seven months of a year ever in this province.
