CHAMPION TRACKS The Canadian Champion traveled 3,100 km with the PROBUS Club of Milton. Members of the club enjoyed a fabulous trip throughout Newfoundland/Labrador. Having coffee with Irish Cream and Newfoundland toutons on Eastport Beach at Goose Cove was a special treat. Going on vacation. Pack your Champion and send us a photo with it to sleblanc@metroland.com. Be - sure to include destination information and everyone's * names. Joe Yaworski photo Newfoundland + Labrador Weicome to the Big Land ot 1 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 . "asi The OMA holds a Presi- dent Tour each Tall. 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 war- ring on his face. He tight- ens the tourniquet on his arm and slowly injects into his bruised veins. He watches me watching him. I pause. "Did it work?" He nods. 2017 Lincoln Continental Reserve AWD Demo, 3.0L Eco-Boost V6, 6 Speed Automatic, Tech Package, Moon Roof, Only 8,800 KM'S, LC17008,MSRP $71,450 $52,500 ....... I didn't know what to ex- pect, never having visited a supervised 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 ster- ile supplies, syringes, nee- dles, sharps containers. Yet gritty with a reality I don't" know. 'I watch a woman moan- ing from a bad high, a worker quietly calming her._ "The drugs are more po- tent, more addictive now," Dr. Jeffrey Turnbull said earlier that day. The Otta- wa site saw maybe 30 users a day; now it's supervising 120 to 150. The patients are afraid. The opioid crisis is a battle- ground. They speak of their illness, how they started, the drugs - "Heroin laced with fen- tanyl? More like fentanyl laced with heroin." "Now there's a fentanyl resistant to Narcan." "I just want to live to the end of the year." 905-875-3673 And that's the thing: their illness is so over- whelming, here at least is a safe space where, for a mo- ment, they have control. Supervised consumption sites link people struggling with addiction to hope. And maybe one day, treat- ment and recovery. "We start with one phi- losophy: Be kind." Dr. Chris Mackie and Sonja Burke have seen thousands of patients since opening Ontario's first temporary overdose prevention site in February. These are people who don't respond to conven- tional treatment. So there is pressure to see things differently; do things dif- ferently. Ottawa started tri- aling injectable dilaudid six months ago. "We gave them a home," Turnbull smiles. "When Gallinger = MILTON oi [957 mm RL d 655 MAIN STREET EAST, MILTON www.gallingerlincoln.com "MSRP for reference only. Expires November 30th, 2018 THE LINCOLN MOTOR COMPANY 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 weigh- ing all the evidence, the Ontario government chose to continue funding super- vised 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. SIGN UP FOR OUR WEEKLY NEWSLETTER AT INSIDEHALTON.COM uoidwey) vepeus) 810Z 'Sl Jaqwaaop Kepsiny woo' uoyjeyapisul