Five years ago, the Old Brewery Mission had to use naloxone on clients about once year, but since opioid toxicity skyrocketed during the pandemic, workers at the Montreal homeless shelter have had to use the life-saving medicine every day.
Sometimes, they don’t make it in time. Just this week, two of the shelter’s clients were found dead in suspected drug poisonings.
“That’s hard. That’s really hard,” said Vincent Dubois, the shelter’s training co-ordinator, who teaches colleagues how to use naloxone and what to do when they find someone overdosing.
“We’re nowhere near the end of this crisis. I’m telling you, it’s far from over.”
While
