Overdose emergency Archives

An incredulous Nanaimo City Councillor Hilary Eastmure responds to a comment from Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog during a debate on provincial drug policy during the Dec. 1, 2025 city council meeting. Screenshot courtesy of the City of Nanaimo.

Nanaimo city council votes down proposed drug policy letter

By Mick Sweetman ● Nanaimo ● December 2, 2025

At the Dec. 1 Nanaimo City Council meeting, a motion to send a letter to the province asking it to reexamine its approach to “the ongoing addiction crisis” was voted down.

Photo of Sarah Lovegrove standing outside the doors to the Vancouver Island Conference Centre where Nanaimo City Council meets wearing a Nanaimo Area Network of Drug users shirt,

Motion to close Nanaimo’s Overdose Prevention Site withdrawn

By Mick Sweetman ● Nanaimo ● November 18, 2025

New motion will ask province to reexamine its policy on responding to the overdose crisis.

Activists carry a mock coffin at the march for International Overdose Awareness Day in Nanaimo on Aug. 29, 2025. Photo by Mick Sweetman / The Discourse.

‘Like a bomb dropping’: Safer supply changes leave patients struggling for stability

By Mick Sweetman ● Nanaimo ● October 14, 2025

A local doctor says the province’s new safer supply rules are more about politics than public health.

Photo of a woman standing in front of a fence with metal hearts bearing the names of people who died from overdoses.

Drop in 2024 Nanaimo overdose deaths still ‘a fraction’ of overall trend upwards

By Mick Sweetman ● Nanaimo ● February 21, 2025

Overdose deaths and emergency calls remain at the second-highest levels since 2014.

Photo of a woman with pink hair and a pink sweatshirt and black ball cap.

Sudden changes to safer supply program a ‘huge mistake,’ says Nanaimo patient

By Mick Sweetman ● Nanaimo ● February 21, 2025

Patients must use prescribed safer supply drugs in front of medical professionals under new rules by province, but health experts say a regulated supply is still an urgent life-saving measure.

Dr. Jess Wilder, a family and addictions medicine doctor, helped organize an unsanctioned overdose prevention site across from Nanaimo Regional General Hospital on Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. She and other addiction medicine doctors are calling on Island Health to stand up permanent sites in hospitals on Vancouver Island. Photo by Mick Sweetman / The Discourse.

Nanaimo addictions doctor behind pop up overdose site resigns in protest

By Mick Sweetman ● Nanaimo ● February 6, 2025

Dr. Jessica Wilder steps down from harm reduction leadership roles at Island Health and at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital after being put on administrative leave following participation in an unsanctioned overdose prevention site.

Sue Fichtler lost her son Evan to a fatal overdose in 2022. She was at the opening of a pop-up overdose prevention site across the street from the Nanaimo Regional General Hospital with Moms Stop the Harm on Monday, Nov. 18, 2024 to call for more services for people who use drugs. Photo by Mick Sweetman / The Discourse.

Patient overdose death at Nanaimo hospital ‘didn’t have to happen,’ doctor says

By Mick Sweetman ● Nanaimo ● November 21, 2024

The night after an unsanctioned Overdose Prevention Site was barred from setting up on Nanaimo Regional General Hospital property, a patient died in an ER washroom.

An older man in a plaid shirt plays the guitar while his sister, with long blond hair and a grey sweater, looks into the camera on the left

Vancouver Island’s ‘hidden epidemic’ and those fighting to understand it

By Julie Chadwick ● Nanaimo ● December 15, 2023

How Nanaimo became ground zero in the fight for toxic drug crisis survivors who are left with brain injuries.

Members of NANDU, a peer run drug consumption group, sit in chairs watching a nurse demonstrate how to administer Naloxone.

Fact checking claims about NANDU and peer-run safe consumption sites

By Lys Morton ● Nanaimo ● March 2, 2023

The Discourse takes a look at some claims about NANDU and safe consumption sites with registered nurse Sarah Lovegrove.