BC Gov News

The Opioid Treatment Access Line is an immediate step to improve same-day access to opioid agonist treatment for people who need help to stop using and better connect them to further treatment and supports in the community.

About opioid agonist treatment

• Opioid agonists are slow-acting medications that prevent withdrawal symptoms and reduce the risk of overdose by moving people away from the toxic-drug supply. This includes kadian, methadone and suboxone.
• Opioid withdrawal can be a life-threatening condition if not managed carefully. Symptoms often include cravings, chills, sweating, nausea, diarrhea, stomach cramps and muscle aches.
• Opioid agonist medications are different than the regulated form of opioid medication (hydromorphone) used in the prescribed alternatives program for people at high risk of death from street drugs. These people may transition to opioid agonists when they’re ready to begin treatment.

How the Opioid Treatment Access Line works

• People may call 1 833 804-8111 toll-free from anywhere in B.C. to speak to a trained doctor or nurse practitioner who will:
  • conduct an initial addiction-medicine consultation over the phone;
  • prescribe an opioid agonist treatment medication, if medically appropriate; and 
  • connect to regional health teams for further treatment and supports in the community.
• Fill the prescription at a pharmacy:
  • It’s free – costs are covered under BC PharmaCare if enrolled in the Medical Services Plan (MSP) and have a personal health number.
  • If not enrolled in MSP, a pharmacist can help enrol in MSP immediately.
• Afterward, health authority substance-use liaison nurses will make sure people are getting the longer-term care they need.

Access line is available:

• daily from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. (last intake at 3:30 p.m., voicemail after hours); and
• health authority substance-use liaison nurses will receive and follow up with clients as needed from 8:30 a.m. until 8:30 p.m. daily, once fully implemented in each health authority; recruitment is underway.

Intervening early to help people access care sooner:  

• providing quality free or low-cost counselling sessions to individuals, couples and families through a total of 49 communities agencies across B.C. with more than 290,000 sessions provided since 2019;
• opening 35 Foundry centres for young people between 12 and 24 to access integrated health and wellness services to help with life, school and work ­– more than 16,000 young people accessed Foundry services in 2023;
• expanding Integrated Child and Youth Teams to 20 school districts to help people under 19 and their families connect to mental-health and addiction care at school and in the community, teams that will serve as many as 5,800 children and youth every month once fully operational;
• helping parents of children between three and 12 develop skills and strategies to deal with anxiety and behaviour challenges through the Confident Parents/Thriving Kids and the We Are Indigenous: Big Worries, Strong Spirit programs; and
• making it easier for people with mild to moderate mental-health and addiction challenges get the care they need at the health clinics and hospitals they already visit with 39 Urgent and Primary Care Clinics now open across B.C., with plans to open as many as 50 by end of 2025.

Reducing risk to save lives:

• saving lives and connecting people to care and treatment at more than 47 overdose prevention sites, up from one location in 2017, which have seen more than 4.8 million visits and 29,641 overdoses survived as of May 2024;
• working to ensure consistent access to Take Home Naloxone kits in more locations, including post-secondary institutions – with 2.4 million kits shipped, research estimates 43% of them were used to reverse an overdose;
• encouraging people to use the Lifeguard app if using drugs alone as it will alert 911 in the event of an overdose;
  • as of June 2024, there were 144,000 uses of the app from nearly 55,000 users with 200 calls made to 911, leading to 114 “confirmed OK” callbacks and 92 overdose reversals, with no deaths reported;
• testing for deadly contaminated drugs at 119 drug-checking sites and investing in a cutting-edge enhanced drug-checking technology, HarmCheck, developed by Vancouver Island University that more accurately identifies substances in drugs; and
• expanding the Hope to Health Clinic so it can reach 1,000 more people with complex mental-health and addiction challenges, meaning 2,800 people in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside will now be able to get the care and wraparound support they need.

Connecting people to treatment and recovery:

• expanding Road to Recovery across B.C. – a new model of addictions care seamlessly moving people through detox, treatment and recovery services without delay; 
  • more than 1,500 people accessed detox beds through Vancouver Access Central phone line in its first nine months, and people prioritized as urgent were able to access a bed within one day;
• opening 659 adult and youth substance-use treatment beds since 2017, bringing the total number of publicly funded beds to 3,645 with more to come;
• supporting eight First Nations-run treatment and healing centres, six of which are being renovated with two new facilities are being planned;
• launching B.C.’s first-of-its-kind treatment centre for Indigenous youth at Orca Lelum Youth Wellness Centre in Lantzville;
• being the first province in Canada to train nurses to prescribe opioid agonist treatment, with nearly 200 nurses across B.C. already helping people access this lifesaving medication; and
• supporting people with brain injuries from toxic drug overdoses with specialized care and wraparound services, such as Complex Care Housing, concurrent disorder treatment, and cognitive rehabilitation.

Supporting people in the community:

• expanding Recovery Community Centres across B.C. so people throughout the province who are leaving treatment receive ongoing support in the community when they return home;
• building 8,800 supportive homes since 2017 to move people out of homelessness and housing insecurity and provide wraparound supports – of those, nearly 6,000 are now homes for people;
• funding 6,100 shelter spaces in 50 communities, including permanent, temporary and extreme weather spaces this past winter, up 45% overall and double the permanent spaces since 2017;
• launching civilian-led Peer Assisted Care Teams in six communities by the end of 2024 so people in crisis receive care from trained peers and health workers instead of police, teams that responded to nearly 3,500 calls to date with just 1% requiring a police response; and
• establishing Mobile Integrated Crisis Response Teams that pair police officers with health-care workers to respond to mental-health or substance-use crises where there may be a safety risk in 19 communities by the end of 2024, with teams currently active in 17 communities. 

Keeping people and communities safe:

• going after the gangs and organized criminals responsible for making and pushing the toxic street drugs that are killing loved ones and hurting communities, by:
  • using Unexplained Wealth Orders to make it faster and easier to seize proceeds of crime and using it to fund victim services programs;
  • establishing an Integrated Gang Homicide Team in the Lower Mainland to focus on investigating complex gang-related homicides and improving intelligence to disrupt gang activity and hold criminals accountable; and
  • hiring 256 more provincial police officers and expanding their investigation and enforcement abilities so they can target criminal activity more effectively.