As I was saying, safe supply is not a Wild West of overprescribing, as some have described it in the media. We prescribe safe supply very carefully to a group of people with highly complex medical and social needs that have not been met in other addiction treatment models. To be eligible for prescribed safe supply in the first place, people need to have experienced very severe health conditions due to their drug use, like untreated HIV or AIDS, frequent overdoses or history of severe infections.
Safe supply patients have tried multiple previous treatment options, like methadone, AA and residential treatment, often dozens of times, and they simply have not worked for them. Prescribed safe supply is another tool in the tool box for these people, and it has helped to stabilize a group of people with enormous health care needs.
Despite the efforts of safe supply critics who say we have no evidence, there is a strong and growing scientific research base of high-quality research on safe supply. Our team has published a comprehensive program evaluation, which found that safe supply patients experience significant decrease in their number of overdoses and their use of fentanyl. This rapid decrease in overdoses experienced by Ontario safe supply patients is not unique. A recent study published in the British Medical Journal found that people in B.C. who were prescribed just one day of safe supply medications had a 61% decreased chance of dying the following week. If people received four days of safe supply medications, they had a 91% decreased chance of dying.
Our team published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal in 2022. We used Ontario health administration data to compare people's emergency department hospital admissions and the number of infections in the year before they were on safe supply with the year after they were on safe supply. This data showed a 50% decrease in emergency visits and hospitalizations among safe supply patients, translating to a 50% reduction in health care costs among people prescribed safe supply.
To this committee, my job is to keep my patients safe, and the evidence shows that safer supply is helping to do that.
I'll end my remarks here, and I look forward to answering your questions.