B.C. chief coroner Lisa Lapointe retiring, sad about lack of sway on overdose policy
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VICTORIA — British Columbia’s Chief Coroner Lisa Lapointe says she’s leaving her post after 13 years, saddened by her agency’s inability to sway policies to reduce the “tragic impacts” of toxic drugs on thousands of people.
The B.C. Coroners Service had been “forever altered” by the public health emergency that continued to take the lives of people of all ages across the province, including more than 2,000 deaths so far this year, Lapointe said in a statement Wednesday.
B.C. declared a drug overdose public health emergency in April 2016. Latest numbers show the loss of 13,317 lives, at a current rate of more than six people a day.
“(It) deeply saddens me that we have been unable to influence the essential change necessary to reduce the tragic impacts of toxic drugs on so many thousands of our family members, friends and colleagues across the province,” she said.
