Interior Health making Suboxone available to emergency departments

Photo: IH

Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospital emergency department nurses: Jane Carlton, Tamara Roscoe, Teresa Myers, and Emily Larochelle.

Interior Health is increasing access of Suboxone, making it widely available in hospital emergency departments.

The medication helps some get off opioids by blocking receptors in the brain that allow a person to get high off drugs like heroin and fentanyl.

Suboxone, however, has traditionally been much harder to access compared to other treatments such as methadone. Often, drug users don’t have a doctor and their first exposure to treatment options is in the emergency room after an overdose.

With 2,224 toxic drug deaths recorded last year in B.C., Interior Health says it has been rolling out Suboxone “to-go packs” to emergency departments alongside a new urgent referral process to connect people to an ongoing prescription.

“The toxic drug crisis continues to impact patients, families, and communities. We can be part of the solution to this ongoing public health emergency and hopefully prevent lives from being lost by providing Opioid Agonist Treatment in the ED,” says Heather Hair, Interior Health emergency services network director.

“Frontline health-care workers in emergency departments often see first-hand the impacts of addiction and toxic drug deaths. We are having conversations and building relationships with people who often have experienced stigma, and hopefully helping keep them from harm.”

The Suboxone in the ED project has now been implemented at 20 hospitals across Interior Health, most recently in the South Okanagan in April, which resulted in a celebration of the enrolment of the 100th client in the program.

In May, Suboxone in the ED is being introduced in hospitals throughout the Kootenay Boundary. All sites will be included by September 2022.