B.C. post-secondary minister admits gaps led to death of UVic student

Article content

The B.C. minister in charge of universities says the fatal overdose of a student at the University of Victoria identified gaps and the need for immediate changes.

It was Post-secondary Education Minister Lisa Beare’s first interview with Postmedia to address Sidney McIntyre-Starko’s preventable death, which has galvanized national attention and resulted in swift action from the province, including a promise to hold a coroner’s inquest.

Article content

“Her death has highlighted gaps that we have here in the system and areas that we need improvement in,” Beare said Friday.

Postmedia first reached out to Beare’s ministry on May 2 to alert her to the details of this case; she would not say Friday why she didn’t respond earlier.

When Sidney, 18, and a friend collapsed on Jan. 23 in a residence, student witnesses quickly called 911 and campus security, which UVic students have been told to phone in an emergency.

Recordings of those calls reveal security officers, who were trained in first aid, did not administer the overdose-reversing drug naloxone until 13 minutes after the calls for help, and didn’t start chest compressions for 15 minutes.

READ MORE: How a B.C. student died after overdosing in a Victoria dorm — and the major mistakes her parents say were made that night

Most overdoses can be reversed if help is delivered within the first few minutes, but Sidney’s brain was starved of oxygen for too long.

There are 300,000 students at 25 B.C. post-secondary institutions, which all set their own rules when it comes to naloxone accessibility on campuses and who students should phone in an emergency.

Article content

Article content

“There isn’t currently an overarching, provincewide policy which is why we will be putting one in place,” promised Beare, who this week met with presidents or vice-presidents of the 25 schools.

After Postmedia published Sidney’s story a week ago, Beare’s ministry created a committee that includes post-secondary officials who will collaborate with health experts to identify, by September, “overdose prevention actions” for every campus. The committee will meet for the first time this Tuesday.

Those actions, Beare said, will examine:

• Making it mandatory for the ministry to be notified of every death on a post-secondary campus.

• Posting boxes containing naloxone in all residences and high-traffic buildings on every campus, as at UBC. Beare said: “My expectation is that there are naloxone kits available where students need them. Point end.”

• Whether campuses will distribute simple nasal spray naloxone, rather than the hard-to-use needle variety that B.C. currently buys the public, will be discussed. (B.C. said it will start buying nasal naloxone, promising tens of thousands of kits soon.)

Article content

• Standardized communication with students about who to call in an emergency. “I’ve made it very clear that 911 should be the first call,” Beare said.

• A provincial policy for medical training for campus security officers.

• Regulating orientation sessions for first-year students, so they are told where naloxone is available on campus and other overdose prevention information.

• A consistent system to alert students about serious incidents on campus that could pose a risk to others.

UVic cited privacy reasons for not alerting students of at least three overdoses that happened on campus, including Sidney’s, over the span of just four days. The other two victims survived.

“I think this is one of the very important questions that the coroner’s inquest will be looking at,” Beare said. “I’ve made it clear that we need to do everything to keep our campuses safe, and that includes education and information to students about overdoses.”

In a statement, UVic indicated it will implement any recommendations from the coroner’s inquest, and will work with the other schools to improve “awareness, supplies and training” and adjust “response protocols” in time for fall classes.

Article content

“We hope this will help UVic and other institutions to avoid further tragic losses,” said Elizabeth Croft, vice-president academic and provost.

Several upper-year students employed as residence advisers in UVic dorms told Postmedia they pinned naloxone kits to bulletin boards in the building after Sidney’s overdose, so that residents could better access the kits. The advisers were angry and frustrated that UVic officials took down the needle-based kits.

Jim Dunsdon, UVic’s associate vice-president of student affairs, defended that decision. “The university could not verify the origin of the kits at the time and could not guarantee they had not been tampered with. These kits required training in order to be administered safely. Based on these factors we decided to remove them.”

Until directed to do otherwise by the province, UVic will not make naloxone available in dorms or classrooms, but continue to make it accessible in a pharmacy and several centres on campus, he said.

Dunsdon noted that after Sidney’s overdose, UVic told students about the “importance of harm reduction” and advised where on campus they could get naloxone and training to use it.

Article content

lculbert@postmedia.com

Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don’t miss the news you need to know — add VancouverSun.com and TheProvince.com to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here.

You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber: For just $14 a month, you can get unlimited access to The Vancouver Sun, The Province, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today: The Vancouver Sun | The Province.

Article content