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Federal health minister says provinces, territories not providing OD death data
VANCOUVER — Federal Health Minister Jane Philpott says she’s aiming to release statistics on overdose deaths in Canada but is frustrated with provinces and territories that haven’t provided data in the midst of an unprecedented public health crisis.
Philpott said Health Canada has been working with a special advisory committee that includes medical health officers and coroners from across the country as part of its plan to deal with an opioid epidemic that is believed to have killed hundreds of Canadians.
“Still, we have provinces that do not have data more recently than 2014 in terms of the number of overdoses. To me, that’s frustrating,” she said in an interview.
“I am hoping very soon to be able to release at least an estimate of the number of deaths that have been seen, for example, in 2016 in this country. But it’s very difficult to address a problem that is not accurately measured. Many of the tools to do that lie within the hands of provinces and territories and I certainly hope that we’ll see progress on that.”