Manitoba counters reports of community naloxone shortage
Global News
Winnipeg organizations are warning of a naloxone shortage they fear could endanger lives heading into summer, but the province says there isn't one.
Winnipeg organizations serving some of the city’s most vulnerable are warning of a naloxone shortage they fear could endanger lives heading into summer — but the province says there isn’t one.
Organizations are calling for a more reliable, steady supply they say could mean the difference between life and death.
Working with Resource Assistance for Youth, outreach worker Tammie Kolbuck said she could distribute ten naloxone kits in a matter of minutes, the demand is so high.
But now, RaY’s shelves are nearly bare due to a shortage other local organizations are also facing, she said.
“We’re going to see people die. That’s a very frank way of saying it,” Kolbuck said.
The province fulfills RaY’s orders, but in the last two weeks, some of their supplies haven’t arrived at all, RaY’s director of grants and information, Breda Vosters, told Global News on Thursday.
Their outreach teams could run out by the middle of next week, Vosters said.
“We’re at a point where naloxone and doing this, this kind of death prevention is really the only tool at our disposal, and when we don’t even have that, we’re, you know, we’re leaving community members swimming in a giant ocean without a life raft,” she said.