Overdoses consume city

Photo: CTV Vancouver

How do you fund a response to a record number of drug overdoses?

The City of Vancouver is trying to find an answer. 

Six hundred people died of overdoses during the first 10 months of 2016. A large number of the deaths have been linked to fentanyl.

Often, due to its strength and low cost, it is cut into other drugs and sold to users unaware of the mixture. 

The situation has gotten so out of hand that a makeshift safe injection site has been set up in Vancouver Downtown Eastside and $5 million has been promised by the province for emergency health services. 

Dustin Bourdeaudhuy, vice-president of Vancouver Fire Fighters' Union Local 18, said the "overwhelming rise in call volume over the last year is staggering."

Last year, firefighters were taking 500 to 600 calls a month, and were one of the busiest departments in Canada. Last month, calls had doubled. 

"We're asking the mayor and city council, with the 2017 budget coming up in the next week, that they find the money to staff a fire truck that's already there – we just need people to staff it – to help with the pressures of call volume," Bourdeaudhuy said.

The budget currently proposes a 3.4 per cent property tax hike, with $1.8 million of that money specifically slated for the DTES.

– with files from CTV Vancouver