People First Radio – April 17, 2025People First Radio – April 17, 2025
People First Radio
People First Radio features Dr Kelsey Roden on volunteer-run overdose prevention sites and treatment gaps, followed by talks from Susan Pinker and Vinod Rajasekaran on the health effects of social connection, volunteering, and burnout in the non-profit sector.
0:00•17 Apr 2025
Safer Drug Use, Stretched Systems, and the Hidden Cost of Caring
Episode Overview
- Volunteer-run pop-up overdose prevention sites near hospitals offer supervised use, harm reduction supplies, and a safer option for patients who use substances.
- Doctors for Safer Drug Policy argue that permanent, well-resourced OPSs in hospitals are evidence-based and urgently needed to reduce toxic drug deaths.
- Current withdrawal management and treatment pathways involve long waits, limited public beds, and high-risk transition periods, especially after treatment or incarceration.
- Basic needs such as housing and food security are described as central to many people’s recovery, often more than any single treatment stay.
- Research shared at Reimagining Volunteerism shows that close social bonds and volunteering boost health, while widespread burnout and food insecurity are weakening the non-profit workforce.
“The non-profit sector runs on purpose, but it cannot run on empty.”
Roden explains how these pop-up tents, run by Doctors for Safer Drug Policy, offer people a safer place to use while staying in hospital: harm reduction supplies, Narcan kits, snacks, “a welcoming attitude,” and staff “overdose response trained.” She’s blunt about the stakes: “Five people are dying every day… One death is too many.” Roden lays out why volunteer-run sites are a stopgap, not a solution, and why she and colleagues are pushing for permanent hospital-based OPSs, pointing to strong evidence that supervised consumption keeps people alive.
What can we learn from those who have battled addiction? People First Radio pulls together front-line medicine and big-picture community care in a packed hour that speaks directly to anyone concerned about toxic drugs, recovery, and burnout. Host Joe Pugh first talks with Dr Kelsey Roden, a Victoria family doctor and addictions medicine specialist, standing outside an unsanctioned overdose prevention site near Royal Jubilee Hospital.
She also walks through the huge gaps in detox and treatment – months-long waits, limited public beds, and the risk of overdose after leaving treatment – and jokes darkly that if she could “prescribe housing,” many of her patients’ problems might look very different. The focus then shifts to volunteerism and wellbeing with talks from psychologist and author Susan Pinker and Future of Good CEO Vinod Rajasekaran, recorded at The Walrus event Reimagining Volunteerism.
Pinker explains how human contact, helping others, and volunteering trigger oxytocin and dopamine, boosting health and longevity.
Rajasekaran shares new data on burnout among non-profit workers and volunteers, warning that “the non-profit sector runs on purpose, but it cannot run on empty.” Anyone interested in harm reduction, treatment systems, or the pressures on people who care for others will find plenty to think about here – and maybe a nudge to ask, what small act of care could make your week feel more meaningful?
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