Marking 20 years
of bold journalism,
reader supported.
News
Health
Coronavirus
Photo Essays

We Should Also Be Cheering These Frontline Workers

Harm reduction providers are battling record overdose deaths in the midst of a pandemic. It’s taking a toll.

Jesse Winter 13 Jul 2020TheTyee.ca

Jesse Winter is an award-winning photographer and writer currently based in Vancouver, B.C. His work has appeared in the Guardian, the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the National Post and elsewhere.

For the past three months, Ronnie Grigg’s cellphone has kept a grim tally.

A longtime harm reduction advocate and frontline worker in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, Grigg has an extensive network of contacts in the field. The community of frontline workers is tight-knit, and the impacts of May’s record-breaking overdose deaths hit them hard.

“Those statistics, those are people, faces we know,” Grigg said. “We’re texting each other with the names of people who’ve died. On top of the intensity of the response, there is this intensity of grief and what you might call community trauma.”

B.C. has begun easing restrictions as the spread of COVID-19 has slowed, but meanwhile the province’s rate of fatal overdoses has skyrocketed, catching community members and frontline workers in the crosshairs of the dual emergencies.

The stress of the past few months has left many workers and peer supporters run ragged, Grigg said, but their efforts often go unseen, especially in comparison to the months of nightly pot banging and cheering for the city’s doctors and nurses facing the virus in hospitals.

Grigg said many of the frontline workers he knows are starting to burn out, and he had to step away from working at overdose prevention sites for a while after the toll of responding to record-high overdoses became too much. But he’s quick to acknowledge that not everyone has that luxury.

A frontline worker who isn’t substance-dependent might be able to take a break for a few months or work somewhere else, he said, but peers providing services to other drug users often don’t have a choice but to help.

“This is a community that refuses to be bystanders or be victimized. It’s a community that’s insisting on being part of the response. But the darker side of that is often that people with lived experience, depending on where they are in their stabilization, often don’t have other options.”

Grigg runs a non-profit, the Zero Block Society, as a way to help centralize support for the frontline worker and peer supporter community.

“Zero Block is reference to the zero block of East Hastings. We’re kind of the epicentre of the overdose crisis, but also [the epicentre] for services, and response,” Grigg said. “We’re working on projects to support frontline workers, on tech projects to help, and peer projects.”

As the coronavirus response was ramping up, there was deep fear that it could devastate the Downtown Eastside community, Grigg said. Services like food and access to safe consumption sites were scaled back, and policies like bans on guests were implemented at some social housing providers.

The community was prepared for virus outbreaks far worse than what actually happened.

582px version of Erica-Thomson-7.jpg
Erica Thomson, executive director of the BC-Yukon Association of Drug War Survivors.

As a former frontline worker, Erica Thomson has experienced burnout.

“I had a meltdown,” she said. “I remember sitting in my vehicle and just crying for about two hours,” she said.

Thomson recently took over as the executive director of the BC-Yukon Association of Drug War Survivors and helped stage a ‘safer supply’ demonstration where advocates and users gave out free and tested cocaine and opium. Virtually everyone she knows, Thomson said, knows someone who has died from a street drug supply that is dangerously tainted with fentanyl and other adulterants.

“It’s heartbreaking, and it’s infuriating,” Thomson said. “It’s really hard on frontline workers to be the ones connecting people with services that can seem like a revolving door.”

She said frontline workers who have been battling the overdose crisis for years deserve the same recognition that doctors and nurses got for facing the coronavirus pandemic.

“You saw it with all the applause and how it helped our doctors and nurses when it comes to everybody’s lives, but when it’s certain people’s lives it doesn’t really matter,” Thomson said.

Scroll down to meet more faces of the front lines.

582px version of Angel-Gates-2.jpg
Angel Gates is a peer advocate who supports residents in her single-room occupancy building in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
582px version of Rodney-Beamish-3.jpg
Rodney Beamish is a supervisor at the Vancouver Overdose Prevention Society.
582px version of Adam-Charbonneau-4.jpg
Adam Charbonneau is a peer research assistant and member of the Community Action Team.
582px version of Charlotte-Twanow-5.jpg
Charlotte Twanow is an outreach worker with Vancouver Coastal Health in the Downtown Eastside.
582px version of Delilah-Gregg-6.jpg
Delilah Gregg is a frontline worker at the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users.
582px version of Lorna-Bird-8.jpg
Lorna Bird, a supervisor and former president of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, with her dog Joy.
582px version of Hugh-Lampkin-9.jpg
Hugh Lampkin is a past president of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users.
582px version of Thomus-Donaghy-10.jpg
Thomus Donaghy is a peer support worker at the Molson Overdose Prevention Site in Vancouver.
582px version of Mouse-11.jpg
Mouse has been a peer worker for 10 years. He currently works at the overdose prevention site near St. Paul's Hospital.
582px version of Dan-Schwass-12.jpg
Dan Schwass works as a peer supporter at the overdose prevention site near St. Paul's Hospital.
582px version of Madelaine-Beaumont-13.jpg
Madelaine Beaumont is an outreach nurse with Vancouver Coastal Health’s STOP HIV/AIDS Team. She spent much of the early part of the pandemic working in a community outreach van, and responding to virus outbreaks across the Downtown Eastside.
582px version of Melanie-Pratt-14.jpg
Melanie Pratt is a frontline worker at the Vancouver Overdose Prevention Society.
582px version of Molly-Needham-15.jpg
Molly Needham is a fronline worker at the Insite overdose prevention site. 'We're starting to come out of the COVID-19 restrictions, which means we can let more people in, which is good,' Needham said. But with all the overdose deaths recently, 'it's like everyone is in a state of collective mourning,' she said.
582px version of Derek-Daizel-16.jpg
Derek Dalziel is a frontline worker at the Insite overdose prevention site.
  • Share:

Facts matter. Get The Tyee's in-depth journalism delivered to your inbox for free

Tyee Commenting Guidelines

Comments that violate guidelines risk being deleted, and violations may result in a temporary or permanent user ban. Maintain the spirit of good conversation to stay in the discussion.
*Please note The Tyee is not a forum for spreading misinformation about COVID-19, denying its existence or minimizing its risk to public health.

Do:

  • Be thoughtful about how your words may affect the communities you are addressing. Language matters
  • Challenge arguments, not commenters
  • Flag trolls and guideline violations
  • Treat all with respect and curiosity, learn from differences of opinion
  • Verify facts, debunk rumours, point out logical fallacies
  • Add context and background
  • Note typos and reporting blind spots
  • Stay on topic

Do not:

  • Use sexist, classist, racist, homophobic or transphobic language
  • Ridicule, misgender, bully, threaten, name call, troll or wish harm on others
  • Personally attack authors or contributors
  • Spread misinformation or perpetuate conspiracies
  • Libel, defame or publish falsehoods
  • Attempt to guess other commenters’ real-life identities
  • Post links without providing context

LATEST STORIES

The Barometer

Do You Think Naheed Nenshi Will Win the Alberta NDP Leadership Race?

Take this week's poll