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Connection
JUSTICE
Overdose Awareness Day at St. Paul’s, Hamilton
6 WINTER 2022
PRESBYTERIAN
presbyterian.ca
  By the Rev. J. Mark Lewis, Interim Moderator, St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church in Hamilton, Ont.
On Wed., August 31, 2022, St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church host- ed an Overdose Awareness Day event for the city of Hamilton, Ont. Forty community agencies were represented and about 300 guests attended. The event in- cluded educational speakers and displays, as well as training on how to use both injectable and
nasal spray Naloxone.
Between 2016 and 2021,
29,052 people died of opioid overdoses in Canada. In the year 2021 alone, 7,560 Canadians died of an opioid overdose— that’s 21 Canadians per day.
During the Overdose Aware- ness Day event, attendees learned about the various fac- tors that have contributed to the public health crisis. These factors include:
• A misunderstanding of the
addictive risk of prescription
opioids;
• Psychological, social and
biological risk factors, such as genetics, mental health, early life experiences, trau- ma, poverty, lack of secure housing and other social de- terminants of health;
• Stigma toward substance use disorders;
• Frequent opioid prescribing and the prescribing of high dosage amounts for pain
relief;
• Lack of awareness and/or
access to alternative treat-
ments for pain;
• Use of prescription opioids
by individuals to whom they are not prescribed, such as friends and family members;
• Lack of access to prescrip- tion opioids, coupled with limited education around safe drug use, leading to il- licit opioid use;
• Saturation of illegal drugs that are laced with fentanyl and its analogues; and
• A lack of comprehensive care to respond to all the mental and physical health needs of an individual.
The event also featured a Truth Hearing in which community and church leaders, including the Rev. Dr. J. Mark Lewis of St. Paul’s, lis- tened to people who have strug- gled with opioid addiction. The direct personal experiences re- vealed in the Truth Hearing made it clear that trauma, poverty, hun- ger, homelessness and stigma all had a direct relationship to opioid
addiction.
St. Paul’s has been home to
Hamilton Urban Core’s Con- sumption and Treatment Site since early 2022. The facility pro- vides safe injection sites as well as counselling for medical con- cerns, employment, housing and mental-health concerns. It hosts up to 27,000 visits per year. On Sept. 29, 2022, St. Paul’s partici- pated in a ground-breaking cer- emony for Hamilton Urban Core’s new permanent facility, which will open on Cannon Street at the end of 2023. St. Paul’s will likely con- tinue to be a satellite site even af- ter the permanent facility opens.
    New Home for Hamilton Consumption and Treatment Site
  The proposed new building.
By the Rev. J. Mark Lewis, Interim Moderator, St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church in Hamilton, Ont.
On Sept. 29, St. Paul’s Presby- terian Church in Hamilton, Ont., hosted the ground-breaking event for the new home of Hamilton Ur- ban Core. St. Paul’s has been the host of the Hamilton Urban Core Consumption and Treatment site since 2021. The new facility at 430 Cannon Street is scheduled to open in November of 2023. It will be a two-story 26,000 square foot building that provides prima- ry health care, community health
and harm reduction services, as well as mental health and addic- tions counselling, meal programs and more—all in one location.
For more than 25 years, Ham- ilton Urban Core has been ad- dressing health inequities, such as poverty, racism, discrimination, unemployment and homeless- ness, which is faced by too many community members, neighbours, friends and families in Hamilton’s city core. St. Paul’s is thankful to be a suppor ter and par tner with Hamilton Urban Core in the work of guarding the equality, dignity and wor th of all people.
The Rev. Dr. J. Mark Lewis speaks at the ground-breaking event. PHOTO CAPTION: HUC STAFF.




























































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