The coronavirus pandemic has had an unexpected and dangerous impact on the opioid crisis in Hamilton, Ont., a local doctor says.
According to Dr. Jill Wiwcharuk, a physician with the Hamilton Social Medical Response Team, naloxone was once widely available in the city but is now in scarce supply for those who need it most, as she says it is no longer being provided at places where it was once normally accessible. “It was distributed at the AIDS Network, it was distributed at the Wesley Day Centre when public health was there,” said Wiwcharuk. “These places are closed now.
Public health is not coming into the Wesley Day Centre to distribute naloxone. The AIDS Network has had to close down. So the access to the life-saving antidote to an