Internationally renowned researcher and harm reduction pioneer Dr. Mark Tyndall will be coming to Chatham to deliver a keynote address at the upcoming What’s the Harm in Harm Reduction (WHHR) conference on March 29 at the John D. Bradley Convention Centre.
Tyndall has dedicated his career to studying HIV, poverty, and drug use in multiple places around the world, starting with Nairobi, and now in Vancouver. An early advocate for harm reduction programs, Tyndall was at the forefront of North America’s first legally sanctioned supervised injection facility, INSITE, established in Vancouver in 2003. Since then, studies have shown that safe injection sites save lives, reduce transmission of disease and help people access addiction treatment and other medical services.
A proponent of evidence-based public health policy and interventions, Tyndall has authored more than 250 academic papers and has received multiple honors for his work. He is currently the Executive Director of the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control and a professor at the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia.
The WHHR conference will feature an additional 15 presenters who are on the cutting edge of harm reduction based interventions in Ontario, including several members who have been appointed by the Minister of Health to serve on the Opioid Overdose Emergency Task Force with the Government of Ontario.
Steve Pratt, Chatham-Kent Harm Reduction Program Manager and Co-Chair of the WHHR Conference Planning Committee, said in a release, “Since being appointed to the Opioid Overdose Emergency Task Force last November, I have a much greater understanding of the challenge we are up against. The data tells us that the Eire St. Clair LHIN region will not be exempt from casualties in this crisis and there are interventions we could be implementing to help reduce and prevent casualties from occurring.
“In working on the frontline of the harm reduction effort in Chatham-Kent, I know that our region is struggling to get up-to-speed with the latest research and interventions that are available to help combat this crisis. It is evident that no one single person or organization will be able to slow this crisis down – we must work together.”
Pratt added that here in Chatham-Kent we are seeing drug related use and harms that exceed national and provincial averages.
“For example, through our Needle Syringe Program’s core site in Chatham, we served 981 individuals a total of 2774 times in 2017. The evidence shows that 0.3 per cent of the Canadian population aged 15 and older are injection drug users. And 981 unique individuals represents 1.1 per cent of the same population in Chatham-Kent – and that doesn’t include any contacts we have at our nine satellite sites throughout the municipality, or through our mobile health services program or secondary contacts we make through our clients – so we know that number is underrepresented.”
Jordynne Lindsay, a Chatham-Kent Public Health Nurse specializing in harm reduction and co-chair of the WHHR Conference Planning Committee, believes from the research evidence that is available, harm reduction interventions will aid in preventing the spread of blood-borne infections, such as HIV and Hepatitis C.
“In 2016, there were 50 confirmed cases of Hepatitis C in Chatham-Kent, which is nearly double the provincial rate. The year before we saw a peak of 70 cases. For the past eight years the incidence of Hepatitis C in our community has been higher than the rest of Ontario” states Lindsay. “Of those cases, we know that 77% of reported cases of Hep C are attributed to sharing of injection drug use equipment.”
This was originally a conference planned for 40-60 people – that due to overwhelming demand – has now expanded to host more than 400 conference participants.
The conference has already been sold over capacity into standing room only seating. Two portions of the conference, Tyndall’s keynote address (8:55 a.m.-10:30 a.m.) and the Overdose Crisis Fireside Chat (12:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m.) – a Q&A conversation between experts in multiple fields – will be broadcast live on YourTV Chatham’s Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/yourtvck/).
