Nine years after the beginning of a public health emergency that has killed more than 16,000 people, the new BC main forensic is assuming the crisis in a new way, an approach that says is, perhaps, a little less political than its predecessor.
“As the main forensic, it is my responsibility not to advocate any particular group. But advocate for all British Colombians … for those who have died,” said Baidwain, who began his five -year mandate in August.
Baidwan does not profess to have all the answers on how to stop overdose deaths and addiction cycle.
But he is concerned that defenders of damage reduction and those who advocate the treatment and recovery based on abstinence are so installed in their position that they will not speak with each other.
“How do we, as a forensic service, people with all ideas about how to solve this problem at a table and make them talk to each other?”
Baidwan joined the BC Coronant service in 2016 as medical director.
His 20 years working as a medical officer in the British army have taken him to the whole world: Iraq, Bosnia and parts of Africa. Baidwan also worked in the home cavalry, watching the queen.
Baidwan says he wants to be more strategic in the way his agency takes information about toxic drug deaths and also highlight other preventable deaths such as people and deaths not seen by the violence of the intimate couple.
Speaking from his office in Victoria with view of the inner port, Baidwan says that he and his team are moving towards a deeper analysis of the trends in overdose deaths, instead of looking at the monthly overdose numbers to tell the story. He is concerned that the public will disabilize for deaths and begin to disconnect them.
“I worry that flooding the media with information sometimes is not the best way to do it,” he said. “Any death, a death from this scourge is too much death.”
Some defenders of damage reduction initially feared that this meant that Baidwan was moving his approach to opioid deaths.
Leslie McBain, who has pressed for a safer supply of opioids regulated since her son, Jordan, died of an overdose in 2014, says that after a meeting with Baidwan this month, she is convinced that this is not the case.
“I am very impressed by this man, he is a straight shooter,” said McBain, of the moms, stops the damage. “He knows absolutely at a deep level about the opioid crisis. He may not give his deep opinions, but, as all forensic do, he will give recommendations on the improvement of the situation.”
“We are not stopping the attention we have paid in the past,” Baidwan said. “In fact, we are increasing the amount of time we are thinking about drug deaths.”
For example, Baidwan says that he is trying to improve associations with the BC Center for disease control so that some of his data analysts and public health researchers can improve the analysis performed by overdose deaths.
Different approach to your predecessor
It is a different approach compared to Lapointe, who directed the forensic service for 13 years.
Toxic drugs have killed almost 14,000 people in British Columbia since 2016, which makes drug deaths a dominant problem during Lisa Lapointe’s mandate as chief forensic. She talks to the National Hanomansing about advocating a “safer supply” and why compassion would greatly contribute to resolving the drug crisis.
But the public, and finally the Government of the NDP, was not always on the side of its recommendations, particularly because the consumption of open drugs in children’s parks, parks and sidewalks of the city led to calls to walk back in the decriminalization experiment.
Lapointe had also asked to provide safer supply medications without a recipe, a recommendation quickly rejected by the government. The Minister of Health, Josie Osborne, announced last month a stricter approach, which requires that people who use prescription opioids take them under the supervision of a pharmacist.
Lapointe retired in February, a member about his frustration for how polarized and political had become the debate on drug policy. She told CBC The Current that she left the work angry at the “discouraged” response to the toxic drug crisis.
Baidwain says it will let the data around overdose deaths speak for themselves.
BC autopsy rates
For example, Greg Sword pressed for an autopsy to give him more answers about the death of his 14 -year -old daughter Kamilah.
She died in her room in Port Coquitlam in the summer of 2022 for an overdose. The Forensic report concluded that the death of the teenager was caused by the use of cocaine and MDMA, although there were other drugs in its system, including hydromorphone, a medication prescribed under the BC’s safer supply program.
Sword was convinced that hydromorphone in his system was minimized as a cause of death.
While Baidwan could not speak specifically to Kamilah’s case, he said that an autopsy would not have made a difference in understanding the cause of death.
The BC autopsy rate has constantly decreased over the course of a decade, while toxic drug deaths increase. The CBC reporter, Jon Hernández, explores the impact that the low BC autopsy rate has had on families and how it compares with other provinces.
“In the world of CSI, we believe that an autopsy will give us all the answers. Unfortunately, it does not.”
BC has one of the lowest autopsy rates in the country. A rate that has constantly decreased from 22 percent in 1991 to 3.2 percent in 2022, according to Statistics Canada.
However, Baidwan says that these figures are misleading because they do not include autopsies carried out in the health system, when someone dies in the hospital, for example, which represents about 10 percent of the deaths.
Baidwan advocates that more forensic are hired, since the number of deaths every year in BC grows due to aging and the growing population.
“We have continually hired more forensic in recent years. And the government has supported by allowing us to hire the correct number of people.”
That, Baidwan said, will allow the BC Coronant Service to complete their research faster, giving families the answers they are looking for.
