Grieving parent advocates for Vernon supervised injection site
In the midst of tragedy, a Shuswap parent is speaking out in favour of the controversial overdose prevention site in Vernon.
Sandra Welton is sharing the painful story of losing her 28-year-old daughter to an overdose earlier this year, even though it is hard to talk about her daughter’s final hours.
The Chase, B.C. woman is telling it over and over again because she believes a supervised injection site in Vernon could have changed her daughter Meghan Parrotta’s fate.
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“She was trying to keep herself clean. She had a slip. If there was a safe injection site, I think she would have went there,” said Welton.
Parrotta went to high school in Vernon. Her mother remembers her as a “great kid” who earned good grades and dreamed of being a police officer.
However, Welton said in her twenties Parrotta developed an addiction to heroin.
An addiction, her mothers says, she was eventually able to leave behind.
Welton said the 28-year-old had been clean for two years before a trip to Vernon in May.
“She bought what she thought was cocaine. Unfortunately, I was told by the B.C. Coroners Service it was so riddled with fentanyl and cold medicine,” Welton said.
“She was found non-responsive on the street in Vernon.”
Watch: An extended interview with Sandra Welton on why she’s advocating for a safe injection site in Vernon.
Welton doesn’t know exactly where here daughter was found, but said knowing she was likely alone when she lost consciousness is painful.
At the hospital Welton was faced with a difficult choice.
“There was no brain activity, her organs were shutting down,” she recalls.
“I asked the doctor, ‘If this was your child, what would you do?’ because that is the most painful decision to make and I was told that she would never wake up… so at that time we decided to take her off life support.”
It’s a tragedy that Welton feels could have been prevented with a safe injection site.
“[At a supervised injection site] someone would have administered naloxone and then called an ambulance,” said Welton.
“Mehgan might still be alive, but because there wasn’t one my daughter was found unresponsive on the street by whoever. How much time was there between her lying on the street and her actually getting to Vernon hospital?”
Interior Health is planning an overdose prevention site for Vernon, a facility that would provide similar supervised drug use services to an injection site.
At the end of March, the health authority issued a request for proposals inviting outside groups to bid to operate the Vernon overdose prevention site.
At that point, Interior Health was hoping to have the facility open this summer.
However, it canceled that bidding process in early April, saying more consultation was needed but the overdose prevention site would still go ahead.
It’s unclear now where the project sits or what the timeline is to move forward on it.
On Tuesday, the health authority said in an email that it could not provide an update on the project as it was still reviewing feedback and options.
Some downtown business owners and business groups have spoken out against the idea of locating the project downtown, fearing the service would only bring more problems to the area.
Instead, the city’s Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Vernon Association have suggested the site should be located at the hospital, an idea the health authority said it hasn’t ruled out.
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