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The initiative began with three women but has since expanded to about 100 people, Sereda said.

“The women were at really high risk of death,” she said. “We saw these first three patients do really remarkably well. We went from somebody who was imminently going to die of her HIV and now she’s well and treated and living independently in her apartment.”

The program is, in part, a response to the scourge of deadly fentanyl, a hyper-potent synthetic opioid implicated in a growing number of deaths here and nationwide.

While there is prescription fentanyl, a drug 100 times more powerful than morphine, much of the fentanyl that circulates on the streets is made in clandestine labs without the precise dosing and proper oversight you’d find in a pharmaceutical facility.

A single hydromorphone pill can sell on the street for $60. Fentanyl sells for less and requires much less to get high.

The concept of deliberately prescribing opioids to addicted patient comes amid a crackdown on prescription narcotics in the medical community.

In recent years, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario — the profession’s regulator in the province — has issued guidelines and recommendations for the judicious prescription of opioids.

Earlier this year London’s hospitals joined forces to roll out a plan limiting the number of opioids prescribed to patients with acute pain to a maximum three-day supply. The goal is to limit the number of the highly addictive drugs in public circulation and clamp down on potential substance abuse and drug dependency.