Central Interior Native Health Society (CINHS) executive director Shobha Sharma and Emily Christensen-Sweeney, co-ordinator of the organization’s community action team, led off Monday’s city council meeting by asking for council’s representation as a public liaison to help the organization in its efforts to raise public awareness of the opioid crisis and the continuing deaths from unregulated drug overdoses which claim the lives of an average six British Columbians every day, most of which occur in private residences.
Coun. Cori Ramsay and Coun. Brian Skakun and Mayor Simon Yu indicated their interest in attending the CINHS’s next meeting.
Ramsay told council that her own mother died of a drug overdose and that it remains a difficult topic for her family to talk about.