B.C. launches opioid treatment phone line to provide access to same-day care

The B.C. government is expanding access to drug-addiction treatment by launching a free telephone line for people to get medication and same-day care. 

The Opioid Treatment Access Line can connect people in need with a team of doctors and nurses seven days a week to prescribe opioid agonist medications. 

"When people struggling with opioid addiction decide to reach out for help, they need access to treatment and care quickly, free from barriers," said Jennifer Whiteside, B.C.'s minister of mental health and addictions, in a news release Tuesday. 

"This new confidential access line will help people across B.C. start on a path to recovery right away." 

Opioid agonist treatment reduces the risk of overdose in drug users by using medications prescribed by a doctor or nurse such as methadone, slow-release oral morphine, and buprenorphine in combination with naloxone — a combination medication commonly called suboxone — to prevent withdrawal symptoms. 

There are at least 125,000 people living with opioid-use disorder in B.C., the province estimates, and 24,000 people currently on opioid agonist treatment. 

Harm-reduction advocate Guy Felicella says the new phone line can help people looking for support. 

"A lot of people in the beginning, especially people looking for help and support, it's really hard to walk into a facility," Felicella said. "This way at least they can talk to somebody on the phone." 

Felicella — a Vancouver-based public speaker known for detailing his own struggles with addiction and overdose — says he helped work on the access line with the Road to Recovery program. 

"It's a really good start," he said. "I think we have to do a better job at understanding how we treat people who use substances. but also how we talk about it." 

Men working in trades are overrepresented in the total number of overdose deaths, according to a 2022 B.C. Coroner's report. The report found that of the 35 per cent of people who were employed at the time of their death, 52 per cent of them worked in construction, trades or transport industry, according to the ministry of mental health and addictions.

Vicky Waldron, executive director of the Construction Industry Rehabilitation Plan, says in a government statement that it can be difficult for people in the construction industry to ask for help and the new phone line may remove barriers that prevent workers from getting the care they need. 

The service's cost will be covered under B.C. PharmaCare, and the phone line will operate from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily.