Long-term opioid users suffer with crumbling bones, brain injuries and little hope of treatment

Hugh Lampkin says he abused drugs — everything from pot to PCP — for decades. He started at about age 12 in Toronto.

Now in his late 50s, he's an overdose survivor who has beaten back his demons. But his past has taken a toll on his body, leaving his back bent at an impossible angle, and surgery out of reach.

Lampkin has lost count of the friends he's lost to overdoses and organ failure.

The opioid crisis has claimed more than 13,000 lives in his province since 2016. On Nov. 1, the B.C. Coroners Service confirmed another 175 suspected deaths in September. That's 10 per cent less than died in Sept. 2022, but still 5.8 drug deaths per day, with most deaths reported in Vancouver, Surrey and Greater Victoria.

Of the 225,000 British Columbians using unregulated substances, fewer than 5,000 receive safe supply prescriptions, according to provincial data.

Opioid overdoses have claimed 38,514 lives in Canada in the past seven years, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada. Many others survive, like Lampkin, but are left with injuries or chronic health issues that then hinder their rehabilitation.

Medical experts say those problems need more study and those people need more support. Today the B.C. Coroners death review panel urged the government to expand safer supply access to save lives and prevent injuries.

According to data from the Canadian Institute of Health Information, some 5,807 overdoses were recorded at Canadian hospitals (not including Quebec) between April 2022 and March 2023.

Of those, 327 suffered anoxic brain injury, meaning their brain was damaged due to a lack of oxygen. Anoxic brain injury is just one of the ailments that can affect overdose survivors. Statistics on the others are scarce.

It's not clear if Lampkin has a brain injury. He says his memory isn't what it was, and his once-long stride is now an agonizing shuffle along an East Hastings Street sidewalk in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

About a year and a half ago, a fall bent his spine almost 90 degrees.

"We were stacking some boxes one day and I fell off — and when I went to stand back up I couldn't stand up straight and it's been there ever since," he said.

Scan the sidewalks that border the Downtown Eastside and it's common to see residents with contorted spines, walkers and wheelchairs. Brian Conway, director of Vancouver's Infectious Disease Centre, says there are 500 or more hospitalizations per day across Canada as a result of overdoses and many more involving infections that can be introduced where an injection pierces the skin that can then spread to the blood, heart, brain or bones.

"The health-care system, currently designed, is failing the inner city," said Conway.