Thread by @ZoeDodd

While many minds are being blown by the ineptitude of the CMOH let me take you on a “journey”.. it’s called the overdose crisis in Ontario

A thread..

#overdosecrisis

Dr. David Williams was appointed Ontario's First-Ever Provincial “Overdose Coordinator” in 2016. The focus of the strategy was to look at pharmaceuticals despite ppl on the ground saying ppl are dying from heroin laced w/ fentanyl. And that de-prescribing would cause deaths.

People on the ground were being ignored as the death rate climbed & fentanyl made its way in to the street drug supply. Data was not timely & lack of it was used to suppress what ppl knew. In the first 6 mnths of 2015 371 ppl died - 728 for the yr. In 2016 867 deaths in ON.

These numbers continued to climb. As they climbed, in 2016, Ontario Cheifs of Police issued a warning about the increase of deaths related to fentanyl. That same year Dr Williams in his new role was at an Opiod Symposium held in Ottawa stating that we didn’t have fentanyl here.

Meanwhile we know that fentanyl related deaths began to climb starting in 2012. We knew in 2016 that heroin was laced with fentanyl and we knew that de-prescribing was pushing ppl to the illicit market. We also knew the data was 6 months to a year behind.

As Dr David Williams has stayed in his role as “overdose coordinator”, though one could easily argue that he was never truly the coordinator.. rates of overdose have continued to climb and surpass BC. 2017 saw a 45% increase in deaths 1265 ppl died.

Late 2017 @TorontoOPS and allies pushed the then Liberal govt to create a task force. Dr Williams co-coordinated this with Lynn Raskin the CEO of South Riverdale CHC. This task force lasted until 2018 when Ford became premier. Dr Williams has never publicly spoken up about it.

He allowed for 2 overdose prevention sites to become defunded, he hasn’t spoken up about the halt to expanding the overdose response or the the cap on supervised consumption services. In 2018 1,413 ppl in ON died of opiate related deaths majority due to fentanyl

In 2019 1,509 ppl in Ontario died of opiate related deaths majority related to fentanyl which by 2017 had completely taken over the illicit opiate market. We have seen a 55-70% increase in OD deaths in 2020. When asked about the increase in deaths Dr Williams compared us to BC

“They have big challenges there. We don’t exactly have that,” Ontario’s chief medical officer of health, David Williams, said on Wednesday about British Columbia — after labelling the overdose challenges experienced in Vancouver as “one-of-a-kind.””

During Dr Williams time as CMOH in Ontario he has failed to properly address the overdose crisis, he has shown little to no leadership in addressing this crisis as the rates of deaths and hospital visits have dramatically increased every year.

And he now fails us with COVID-19

During the Chapman Inquest in 2018 the Ministry of Health was asked on the stand several times who was in charge of the Overdose Crisis, no one knew. One of the recommendations was to have someone in charge. Is Dr Williams in charge? thestar.com/amp/news/gta/2…

It’s time for Dr David Williams to step down. He fails us as CMOH. He shows no leadership and has allowed for COVID and the OD crisis to get out of hand. And it will get worse. His track record over the last 4 years “in charge of the OD crisis” demonstrates that