Health committee  Particularly chronic pain.

Health committee  Absolutely. We've actually set up that program for our inner city patients now, because access to alternative supports for chronic pain in our country requires us to pay. Not every province provides that free.

Health committee  Exactly, and even if you're poor, you still have to pay $10 or whatever, and that could be a discouraging process.

Health committee  If we're saying that's what we should be offering, then we should be paying for it.

Health committee  Yes, it is. That's what we're doing. We've got a little program going that's free to our patients right now with physio, OT, counselling etc., but that's just a small pause. That should be available to all of us.

Health committee  One thing I've observed happily in our community is the flowering of first nations indigenous culture apart from health authorities. It has a place, and we support that within our clinics and so forth, but the actual community itself is finding its own power and voice. That has b

Health committee  It does. As in the United States, a number of years ago there was a huge push, usually, as we know now, from pharmaceutical companies promoting the treatment of pain by physicians as the next vital sign, and particularly OxyContin or oxycodone—which is a very nasty drug, because

Health committee  Within the community practice I am in, very few will; it's not prescription driven. However, certainly as a prescriber, all of us have college-mandated limits currently. I do palliative care, so I deal with a lot of opioids appropriately, I think. There is this situation now wher

Health committee  Thanks for that question. I think the individual needs options for care, of which we don't have enough.

Health committee  Going off to a wonderful treatment place that is culturally appropriate might be an option.

Health committee  Thank you for that. I think my colleagues on the panel here are well aware of our need for more data collection in real time, so that we will know exactly what's happening and what the appropriate, if possible, response is to that local condition. I have experience only with Vanc

Health committee  It wasn't an HIV program. Nobody gets ejected from that, luckily. It's from the Crosstown Clinic, from early on, when they were doing NAOMI and SALOME studies of injectable heroin and hydromorphone to try to stabilize patients. Various behaviours led to their being ejected; usua

Health committee  Yes, if you so-called “fail” injected heroine—free heroine—that makes you pretty complicated for me to look after and to try to get HIV meds into you every day. I don't have the same experience of a lot of our potential programs being effective for everyone. I have patients now

Health committee  We know clearly from research that safe injection sites save lives. People can overdose there and be resuscitated. They can also receive health care at a certain level there and possibly, when they're ready, get some help in trajecting out of drug use life. However, other peopl

Health committee  Maybe I'll just describe some of the response to pregnancy in drug-using women in Vancouver. We have, in the inner city, a specialized group of nurses, doctors and outreach workers to track and bring prenatal care to our drug-using ladies, and to offer them treatment at B.C. Wom