I often get messages from moms who are having a hard time because their children are addicted to drugs. Just today I got a message from a mom who wrote, “I'm so sorry it has been so long. I've been in survival mode fighting to save my daughter. Her 13-year-old friend just died yesterday here in rural British Columbia from overdose at the local hospital after the local hospital released her from an overdose on Friday. Please help us. I can't bear going through another child's funeral. These children deserve so much more than this ignorant system. Doctors should have held her under the Mental Health Act until she could have gone to detox. Another family ruined, many who loved her traumatized and more deaths to follow if something doesn't change.”
That message, as a mom and as someone who sits there....The fact that that beautiful 13-year-old child couldn't get into detox and was released after having an overdose at 13 speaks to how broken this system is.
Ms. Sturko, have you seen any increase in detox capacity in the last two and a half years or five years?