CALGARY—With funding for new supervised consumption sites in the province under review by the United Conservative government, front-line workers in Calgary are taking to GoFundMe to raise funds to support their work fighting the opioid crisis.

The Calgary Street CCRED (Community Capacity in: Research, Education, and Development) Collaborative, led by family physician Dr. Bonnie Larson, started its fundraiser on July 11 with a goal of $25,000. Another campaign, started July 14 by the Calgary Harm Reduction Alliance, is asking for $10,000.

Both campaign pages say that with funding for supervised consumption sites under review by the UCP government, community members are not confident the province will continue to support their work.

Larson said she started the Street CCRED campaign out of a concern for people’s lives, as the opioid crisis continues to cause overdose deaths in Calgary. Fentanyl, an often deadly opioid at the root of the current crisis, killed 137 Albertans during the first three months of 2019.

“Since the change of government, we’re seeing no change in the pace of mortality, but definitely a divestment from the resources that are preventing additional deaths,” she said. “So we’re seeing more deaths with less services, and less hope of getting any new services that we need.”

Street CCRED is an initiative formed by front-line workers, including physicians like Larson and nurses, that works with vulnerable citizens in Calgary, helping them access all types of care.

“We’re trying to meet people where they’re at so that they can access care,” she said, adding that she sees supervised consumption sites as “the emergency room of the system of care for addictions,” where many people get connected to other resources or types of care.

Larson said the funds will go toward building more capacity on the front line of the opioid crisis, drawing on the medical community to train community members to respond to overdoses. She also hopes the community, including medical professionals, can learn more about how to connect people struggling with addictions to other services that could help them stabilize their lives.

In an emailed statement, Steve Buick, spokesperson for Health Minister Tyler Shandro and Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Jason Luan, said the government supports harm reduction as part of the response to the opioid crisis. He said Luan hopes to announce findings from the supervised consumption site review in the fall.

“Our government has committed $100 million to a new mental health and addiction strategy, as well as $40 million to an opioids strategy. Those are substantial public investments that we believe will make a real difference, but government cannot fund every need,” said Buick. “Drug addiction impacts our communities as a whole, and we applaud initiatives that provide a way for people to support their neighbours and improve the quality of life in their neighbourhoods.”

Larson said she thinks that many of her peers in medicine see the effects of the opioid crisis in their day-to-day work, but don’t feel empowered or able to address systemic issues that may contribute to the crisis. This fundraiser, she hopes, will help address that.

“I know that we have it in us as a community to respond to this,” she said. “We just need a bit of time and building relationships.”

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Larson said she’s hopeful that funding will be restored for new supervised consumption sites after the fall, but that she and other community organizations are preparing for the worst.

“As a physician, I can’t stand by and do nothing,” she said. “These are actually my patients that I care for.”

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