Monday was International Overdose Awareness Day, and B.C. remains one of the hardest hit areas in the country. Those touched by B.C.’s toxic drug supply gathered to pay tribute to the countless lives lost.

“I miss them,” said Delilah Gregg, president of the Western Harm Reduction Society.

“I know they’re watching over us and keeping us safe.”

Gregg says she has seen little improvement in the 10 years since the province first labelled it a public health emergency.

“They’re wanting to put people into involuntary care, but you can’t do that, because you’re killing them,” she said.

“If you cut somebody off, they’re going to end up dying or taking their own life, and that’s part of mental health.”

Nearly five people die each day in B.C. from the toxic drug supply. But over at Vancouver General Hospital (VGH), scientists have developed a protocol aimed at lowering that number.

“It’s just heartbreaking when I constantly hear about patients experiencing opioid overdose passing away, because I firmly believe that that’s now preventable,” said Dr. Pouya Azar, clinician-scientist at VGH.

Azar says that for many years, health-care professionals were left playing catch-up following the arrival of fentanyl, which is 30 to 50 times stronger than heroin.

“When fentanyl hit British Columbia, it was the first place in the world where we started to see illicit fentanyl,” he said.

“Very quickly, all the treatment protocols that we had, which we were using to treat patients who used opioids, became less and less effective.”

Azar knew there must be a solution, and he began looking at how they could use existing medications in a new way.

He eventually developed a protocol named Rapid Opioid Agonist Treatment, which allows patients to receive life-saving care in a fraction of the time.

“We’ve reduced the time from weeks to one single day to get somebody to an effective dose.”

The successful protocol is now available digitally for medical teams across North America and Europe, in the hopes of helping more people along their road to recovery.

“We have to do bigger studies to prove the safety and efficacy of these protocols, but this could represent a paradigm shift in the way we treat our patients,” Azar said.

More than 18,000 British Columbians have lost their lives due to the toxic drug crisis.