Overdose prevention sites at hospitals will help save lives, says a peer support worker who shared his own journey to recovery this week.
A pop-up site near the Comox Valley Hospital is operating until Friday. It’s run by Doctors for Safer Drug Policy, and helps people dealing with addictions stay safe, and connect them with pathways to recovery.
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Callum Roth got clean four years ago after a near-death experience on Hastings Street in Vancouver. He says if it hadn’t happened at a safe injection site, he would have likely died. Instead, the harrowing experience helped give him the strength to get better, and to help others.
“There’s so many moving parts of suffering that helped me get there at the end,” he says. “If I didn’t survive that day, who knows. If I had used alone in an alley, or in an apartment or in a hotel room that day, I might not be here today.”
Roth says addicts need support and more education, and less policing. He says a personal support network is key, and more resources and long-term supports will help people survive addictions and hopefully turn their lives around.
— With files from Hussam Elghussein
