The number of people dying from opioid overdoses continues to rise in the Algoma region, according to new data released by Ontario’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. During the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic (April 2021 to March 2022), toxic drugs killed 59 people in Sault Ste. Marie and surrounding communities — up from 51 the previous year. During that 12-month period, Algoma Public Health had the third highest rate of opioid-related deaths in the province, recording 52 per 100,000 people. The previous year, the rate was 44.7 per 100,000 people. Only Thunder Bay and Sudbury recorded higher death rates. The local rise comes as no surprise to Connie Raynor-Elliott, the founder of Save our Young Adults (SOYA), a grassroots organization that provides frontline services and guidance to people living with addiction in Sault Ste. Mary. Raynor-Elliott is preparing to add dozens of names to a memorial to mark Drug Overdose Awareness Day next week. He actually thinks the death toll is understated. “I know people whose child died of an overdose and they had fentanyl in their system and they died of an overdose — fentanyl wasn’t even their drug of choice — and [the death certificate] he said cardiac arrest,” he said. “This is drug poisoning, which should be classified as an overdose.” As a whole, Northern Ontario has more than twice the death rate of the province as a whole. One of the differences here compared to southern Ontario is the lack of access to services, Raynor-Elliott said. “We fill in the gaps,” he said of SOYA. “We have some amazing services in the city, but substance use disorder, mental health and homelessness don’t work Monday to Friday, 9 to 5. Between Christmas and New Year, all those agencies close. SOYA was the only one open.” Operating from a storefront on Gore Street, SOYA provides face-to-face services to people living with addiction. “Our mission is to save people’s lives. We refer. This is our topic. Do you need help because you are homeless? Let us help by contacting housing and helping with paperwork. Need help with ID? Let’s help. Do you want to go to therapy? Let us help you,” Raynor-Elliott said. To her, the data in the most recent data from the medical examiner aren’t just figures on a bar graph. He remembers the names and faces of many of those who died. “These are people. That’s the thing, these are people,” Raynor-Elliott said. “No one wants to die and I also deal with the families and those left behind — it’s absolutely heartbreaking, the stories I hear.” On Wednesday, dozens of names will be added to the memorial wall at the Ronald A. Irwin Civic Center to mark International Overdose Awareness Day during an event hosted by SOYA. People who have lost a loved one can fill out an application to have the name of the deceased permanently placed on the wall in a decorative star. Those who do not want the name officially added can decorate a rock and place it at the base of the monument. The memorial was made to expand, a task Raynor-Elliott is looking forward to doing someday. He goes to the wall about three times a week, every week. “I go there because my stepson’s name is on the wall, but I also bring people to the wall,” Raynor-Elliott said. The Overdose Awareness Day event will begin at the memorial service at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, before moving to the Bondar Pavilion for a free barbecue and information session with community partners, including the Sault Ste. Marie and Area Drug Strategy, Community Wellness Bus, local paramedic and fire service, among others. “The organizations will all be under the pavilion and be able to tell the public exactly what they’re doing,” Raynor-Elliott said. One service that won’t be at the event is Sault Area Hospital’s intensive day care programming, which was recently put on hold due to a lack of funding. “The closing of the day treatment center was very disappointing because it was really successful,” Raynor-Elliott said. “Suddenly word came out that they didn’t get the funding. Did you apply for funding? It’s $321,000. To the average Joe it sounds like a lot, but how come Sudbury still has it? And does Timmins still have it? Why doesn’t Sault Ste. Mary;” “I would hate to be the person who had to call the 20-plus people on the waiting list to say ‘sorry, the program has been postponed. You don’t come for treatment.’ How fair is that?’ Sault Ste. Marie needs more services, not less, she said. Timmins, North Bay and Sudbury have either opened a supervised consumption area or will do so in the near future. SOYA is not the organization leading the supervised consumption site initiative in Sault Ste. Marie, but supports the application. “You need the funding, but to get the funding you need a building. To get the building you need the financing. It’s not easy to do, but how about Sudbury and North Bay and Timmins and all these places in northern Ontario? That’s what I’d like to know,” Raynor-Elliott said. “We have to do something because it’s not going to get better. It will get much worse. We need everyone to work together, just like in any other community and all of a sudden we’re going to get this funding so we can reopen day treatment or open a supervised consumption facility,” he said.
