Question Period Note: Support for Rural and Remote Communities

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· People living in smaller communities experience 2.5 times higher opioid poisoning hospitalization rates than those in Canada’s largest cities.
· We know that people living in rural communities, including remote Indigenous communities, face significantly higher barriers to accessing harm reduction and treatment services.
· We continue to work with provinces and territories to support expanded access to services for all Canadians, regardless of where they live.
· Budget 2024 announced the commitment of $150 million over three years, starting this year, for an Emergency Treatment Fund that would be open to municipalities and Indigenous communities to help provide a rapid response to emergent, critical needs related to the overdose crisis.
· Canada hopes to have this fund available to communities who meet eligibility requirements later this year.
· Through Health Canada’s Substance Use and Addictions Program, we are also working to directly support on the ground efforts in rural and remote communities impacted by this crisis as well as services providing virtual care.
o Example: Centre for Addiction and Mental Health Virtual Integrated Collaborative Care (VICC) using the Technology Enabled Collaborative Care (TECC) platform.
o Project is an innovative care delivery design that reorganizes existing resources by using an online platform for communication and patient-driven or provider-facilitated data entry. This leads to more effective delivery and retention of opioid use disorder (OUD) services and treatment in high-risk individuals with severe OUD.Example: National Overdose Response Service (NORS)
 Funding will enhance virtual overdose monitoring service infrastructure and the development of a variety of knowledge products, including guidelines for using technology-based harm reduction services which will be developed in conjunction with the Canadian Research Initiative in Substance Misuse (CRISM) and project evaluation.

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