UVic overdose death: School promises naloxone boxes, student training

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The University of Victoria will provide the overdose-reversing drug naloxone in 89 locations in student residences, in response to criticism over its handling of the preventable death of a first-year student five months ago.

UVic has also pledged to alert all 3,000 new students about the location of these emergency kits when they move into the dorms this September, as well as train residence staff on how to use them.

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And the university says a new external review will lead to “real change that will make campus safer for students” by examining the death of Sidney McIntyre-Starko, who failed to receive simple, life-saving care after she was poisoned by fentanyl in a dorm in January.

“We have learned difficult but important lessons from the events surrounding Sidney’s death and are committed to ensuring this tragedy leads to meaningful and lasting change,” Paul Ramsey, chair of the UVic board of governors, wrote in a June 20 letter to the B.C. minister in charge of universities and colleges.

The naloxone boxes will be in residence common areas, including on every floor or student lounge, by mid-August, Ramsey said. They will contain the simple nasal-spray naloxone, which is easier to use than the needle format B.C. offers to the public through pharmacies.

These moves by UVic could foreshadow similar changes at B.C.’s other 24 post-secondary campuses for the coming school year.

Reacting to the backlash over McIntyre-Starko’s death, Lisa Beare, the post-secondary education minister, set up an overdose prevention committee involving all 25 universities and colleges. That committee is to provide an update in July on how campuses will improve protection for students during the poisoned-drug crisis, which has become the leading cause of death for B.C. children and youth.

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Ramsey’s new commitments were in reply to a stinging letter penned June 13 by Beare, who asked how UVic will address multiple concerns raised by McIntyre-Starko’s parents, Ken Starko and Dr. Caroline McIntyre, an emergency physician.

After Sidney collapsed, witnesses called for help immediately, but she didn’t receive naloxone for 13 minutes or chest compressions for 15 minutes. The 18-year-old died despite first-aid-trained campus security officers arriving promptly with naloxone and a 911 call-taker talking on the phone with another student.

When Postmedia first asked about the details of this case, which were confirmed by the 911 recording, UVic initially maintained its officers’ efforts were “commendable,” and insisted the Postmedia’s timeline was wrong.

Ramsey, who declined an interview request, outlined additional steps in his letter:

• Incoming students will get information about harm-reduction in pre-arrival communication, during first-day orientation, and in their student handbooks.

• The university will work to find ways to make it easier for first responders to find emergencies on campus, including possibly assigning unique addresses to each building.

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• Online references that exaggerate credentials of campus security, such as calling them “trained paramedics,” will be removed.

• An external, independent review will be carried out. But a UVic spokeswoman said who will lead it, what will be studied, and when it will be finished are still being finalized.

These actions are in addition to others recently taken by UVic, including an internal review involving a panel of experts to provide recommendations on overdose response, bolstering campus security training, clarifying rules for contacting 911, and reviewing protocols for contacting families in an emergency. The university did not alert Sidney’s parents the night she was taken to hospital.

For the first time on Tuesday, UVic provost Elizabeth Croft responded to Sidney’s parents’ complaints that while she had called UVic president Kevin Hall to alert him the night Sidney overdosed, she did not reach out to the family.

“I apologize that I did not ensure you were contacted immediately, I am truly sorry. We are committed to learning from Sidney’s death,” Croft wrote to the family.

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The botched response to Sidney’s death has also resulted in Premier David Eby announcing a coroner’s inquest, and the province starting to buy more nasal naloxone kits and to make CPR training mandatory in high school.

Hall sent a letter — which largely echoed Ramsey’s commitments — to Sidney’s parents on Friday, after Beare urged him to contact them immediately. He promised to maintain better communication with the family and said the university was “striving to do better” with the actions it was taking.

“I can’t imagine the pain and anger you are rightfully feeling, and I am sorry for our role in your grief,” wrote Hall, who the family had not heard from since April 5.

In their response to Hall and Ramsey on Monday, Sidney’s parents said they are relieved by the promised changes, especially the spray naloxone kits on campus.

“We are encouraged by UVic’s plans to make its campus safer,” McIntrye and Starko said. “Obviously, we would have preferred this happen months ago.”

The family remains frustrated, though, that Ramsey did not address their concerns that residence staff have said they were told by the university not to warn students about Sidney’s fentanyl poisoning at the request of her parents — a statement that wasn’t true.

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A few universities, such as UBC and Carleton in Ottawa, have made spray naloxone easily available to students in boxes installed throughout campus, but accessibility can be much more difficult at many other schools in B.C. and often students can only get the harder-to-use needle variety. Beare’s committee is trying to streamline these rules.

Since the public health emergency was declared eight years ago, 26 people have died after accidentally overdosing on the grounds of a B.C. university, college or high school, the coroner says. Six victims died in each of 2022 and 2023, and there were two deaths as of early May this year, including Sidney’s.

lculbert@postmedia.com

For more info on this story, visit sidneyshouldbehere.ca

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