People First Radio – January 23, 2025People First Radio – January 23, 2025
People First Radio
Coverage of an unsanctioned overdose prevention site outside North Island Hospital is paired with personal stories of addiction and recovery, alongside a discussion of BC’s human rights book club. The episode blends on-the-ground harm reduction work with wider reflections on stigma, policy, and the role of stories in building empathy.
0:00•24 Jan 2025
Pop-Up Overdose Prevention, Lived Experience & A Human Rights Book Club
Episode Overview
- Overdose prevention sites near hospitals are presented as an evidence-based way to reduce deaths, connect people to care, and ease pressure on healthcare staff.
- People who use substances often avoid or leave hospital because unmanaged withdrawal is described as unbearable, leading to delayed care and worse health outcomes.
- Harm reduction workers stress that safer-use supplies reduce infections and emergency visits rather than encouraging drug use.
- Lived experience stories highlight that recovery usually requires many attempts, extensive support, and work on underlying personal issues, not just stopping substances.
- The BC Human Rights Commissioner promotes a human-rights-focused book club as a way to build empathy, counter misinformation, and encourage everyday action on big social issues.
“The day that I realised I didn’t have a drug problem, that I had a Callum problem, was the day I was really able to start to do the underlining work on Callum.”
Curious about how others manage addiction, recovery, and the systems meant to support them? This episode of People First Radio drops you right into the heart of a pop-up overdose prevention site outside North Island Hospital in the Comox Valley, then shifts gears into a chat about human rights and books. Hosted by Joe Pugh, the show blends raw street-level reality with thoughtful policy discussion. You'll hear from Dr.
Eva Hemmerich, an addictions physician leading the unsanctioned, unfunded site set up by Doctors for Safer Drug Policy. She lays out why hospital-based overdose prevention is, in her words, “basically a no-brainer,” explaining how people forced to use in stairwells, car parks, or nearby forests are overdosing instead of safely managing brutal withdrawal.
Harm reduction worker Tasia walks the audience through the tent, explaining safer-injection kits and why “providing kits like this… doesn’t enable drug use” but cuts HIV, hep C, and emergency visits. Her story of losing her kids, fighting her way back, and now “paying it forward” adds a deeply personal edge.
There’s also Heather Edward, eight months substance-free, reflecting on how fear of withdrawal kept her from hospital care, and peer worker Callum Roth, who spent 20 years in addiction and 19 treatment centres. His line, “The day that I realised I didn’t have a drug problem, that I had a Callum problem,” neatly sums up the episode’s focus on underlying trauma, not just substances.
Later, BC Human Rights Commissioner Kasari Govinder talks about her office’s human rights book club, using titles like *On Tyranny* and *The Little Hummingbird* to build empathy and spark action around issues like hate, misinformation, and democracy. If you’re interested in harm reduction, hospital policy, or just want real voices talking honestly about addiction and human rights, this one gives plenty to think about.
What part of this conversation sticks with you the most—the data, the policy, or the lived experience?
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