Article content

Three Ottawa men were pronounced dead of suspected opioid overdoses within a few hours on Monday as the city’s supervised consumption services awaited news from the province on whether they will be funded past the end of the month.

On Feb. 1, the province announced it was extending the approvals for supervised consumption services to the end of March while the health ministry reviewed applications. The approvals, which confer funding on the sites, had originally been set to expire on Jan. 31.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or A day after three OD deaths in Ottawa, supervised sites continue to wait for funding news Back to video

Ottawa Public Health has “productive conversations” with the province and expects to continue to offer services past March 31, said Andrew Hendriks, director of Health Protection.

“We are committed that there should not be any break in our services. Overdoses are still an important issue in the community. We know the services are making a difference.”

Ottawa Police and paramedics say they were called to four incidents over 14 hours involving six people who had apparently overdosed on tainted narcotics. Three men have died in the suspected overdoses.