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9| The IFP -H alton H ills | T hursday,N ovem ber 8,2018 theifp.ca The OMA holds a President Tour each fall. This year I added more stops. Doctors are busy. I wanted to meet them where they're at and see first-hand what they do. Below is one such story. "I told my brother, don't give me Narcan till I turn blue. Then I overdosed. I did it to show my son: don't follow me down this road." His face is worn, hair and beard unkempt. Fear, sadness, resignation warring on his face. He tightens the tourniquet on his arm and slowly injects into his bruised veins. He watches me watching him. I pause. "Did it work?" He nods. I didn't know what to expect, never having visited a super- vised injection site before. A blank slate. But now I've visited two - one in London-Middlesex, one in Ottawa - and a third one is booked. The places are familiar and unfamiliar. Clean and medical. Rooms full of sterile supplies, sy- ringes, needles, sharps contain- ers. Yet gritty with a reality I don't know. I watch a woman moaning from a bad high, a worker quietly calming her. "The drugs are more potent, more addictive now," Dr. Jeffrey Turnbull said earlier that day. The Ottawa site saw maybe 30 us- ers a day; now it's supervising 120 to 150. The patients are afraid. The opioid crisis is a battleground. They speak of their illness, how they started, the drugs - "Heroin laced with fentanyl? More like fentanyl laced with heroin." "Now there's a fentanyl resis- tant to Narcan." "I just want to live to the end of the year." And that's the thing: their ill- ness is so overwhelming, here at least is a safe space where, for a moment, they have control. Su- pervised consumption sites link people struggling with addiction to hope. And maybe one day, treatment and recovery. "We start with one philoso- phy: Be kind." Dr. Chris Mackie and Sonja Burke have seen thou- sands of patients since opening Ontario's first temporary over- dose prevention site in February. London's overdose rates are 50 per cent higher than anywhere else in the province. The workers witness several overdoses a day - and literally, save lives. Super- vised consumption sites help people survive long enough to get treatment. One couple, treat- ed and now recovering, sent a thank you card: "You saved us. Gave us hope." These are people who don't re- spond to conventional treat- ment. So there is pressure to see things differently, do things dif- ferently. Ottawa started trialing injectable dilaudid six months ago. "We gave them a home," Turn- bull smiles. "When they became addicted, their lives and develop- ment just stopped. Now, they're learning again. How to cook. Clean. Work. Volunteer. How to live a life." On Oct. 22, after weighing all the evidence, the Ontario gov- ernment chose to continue fund- ing supervised consumption sites. Nadia Alam is a Georgetown physician and president of the Ontario Medical Association. She can be reached at na- dia.alam@oma.org. OPINION 'BE KIND' IS THE FIRST PHILOSOPHY OF SUPERVISED INJECTION SITE IT'S A SAFE PLACE FOR AN OVERWHELMING ILLNESS, WRITES PHYSICIAN ALAM NADIA ALAM Column BEST BUY CORRECTION NOTICE NEWSPAPER RETRACTION FOR THE BEST BUY NOVEMBER 2nd CORPORATE FLYER Christopher Robin Blu-ray In the November 2nd flyer, page 15, the Blu- ray version of the movie Christopher Robin (Web Code:M2228488) was advertised with an incorrect price. The correct price for this movie is $29.99. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused our valued customers. By Cory Soal R.H.A.D. . . . Lend MeYour Ears We care about your hearing! Professional Arts Building 99 Sinclair Ave., Suite 210, Georgetown 905-873-6642 Serving the community of Halton Hills and surrounding areas since 1992 HEARING INSTRUMENT PRACTITIONERS The Georgetown In Ontario, the Association of Hearing Instrument Practitioners was derived from the former Ontario Hearing Aid Association and the Association of Hearing Aid Dispensers. As the Professional Association for practitioners in Ontario it outlines provision for registration, which includes the requirement of education and competency standards, sponsors the most strict code of ethics in the industry and enforces sound grievance and ethics procedures. The Hearing Clinic is proud to adhere to the strict regulations and guidelines put forth by the Association. For more information feel free to call.…