A small group of health-care workers in Alberta is working to inform wildfire evacuees from the Northwest Territories about where to access common medications for opioid-use disorder in Calgary and Edmonton.

Missing even a day of medications causes withdrawal symptoms, while several days without increases the risk of relapsing for otherwise stable patients — which means more people at risk of dying from the toxic street drug supply, says Dr. Kate Colizza, an addiction medicine and internal medicine physician in Calgary.

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    A small group of health-care workers in Alberta is working to inform wildfire evacuees from the Northwest Territories about where to access common medications for opioid-use disorder in Calgary and Edmonton.

    Missing even a day of medications causes withdrawal symptoms, while several days without increases the risk of relapsing for otherwise stable patients — which means more people at risk of dying from the toxic street drug supply, says Dr. Kate Colizza, an addiction medicine and internal medicine physician in Calgary.

    “It’s not the type of medication where a lot of people can plan ahead or have extras available,” said Colizza, who created fliers listing opioid agonist therapy (OAT) clinics and programs in the two cities.

    After she shared the information on social media, Colizza said advocates on the ground started printing out the fliers and distributing them at evacuee reception centres.

    to determine how many people in the region have a history of accessing OAT, in an effort to find out what the demand would be at Alberta reception and evacuation centres.

    She echoed her own and other expert and advocates’ calls for a regulated, safe drug supply in Alberta and across Canada, “so people can have known substances, in known quantities, from known sources.”


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