Notice Board

The Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs (SACPA) presents a session with Dr. Esther Tailfeathers as she discusses the harm reduction approach to dealing with the opioid crisis.

Are Harm Reduction and Empathy the Main Pillars when Battling Drug Dependency?

Monday, June 14, 2021 from 12 to 1 p.m. MDT

YouTube Live link:  https://youtu.be/DG7ViCHoFZE

While painkilling medicine has been around for a very long time, Fentanyl is a powerful addictive opioid painkiller, the use of which has caused an increasing public health threat in Canada and elsewhere. Fentanyl was initially approved in 1960 and used for the treatment of moderate to severe pain, especially cancer pain. However, recent years have seen a growing use of fentanyl and its analogs that are widely synthesized in laboratories and adulterated with illicit supplies of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and counterfeit pills, contributing to addiction and the exponential growth in the number of drug-related overdose deaths.

The southern Alberta community of Kainai First Nation has been hit very hard by the Fentanyl overdose crisis and since 2014 in particular, hundreds in the community have died tragically. The speaker will describe the early circumstances of the crisis and more recent measures taken to mitigate the loss. These measures include a harm reduction strategy, since conventional abstinence-based treatment has proved ineffective for saving lives. The strategy includes supervised consumption and the Blackfoot practice known as "kimmapiiyipitssini" – pronounced "GEE-maa-bee-bit-sin" meaning "giving kindness to each other”.

Speaker:  Dr. Esther Tailfeathers

Dr. Esther Tailfeathers was born and raised on the Blood Tribe Kainai First Nation in southern Alberta. She graduated from the University of North Dakota, School of Medicine and completed her Family Medicine residency at the University of Alberta.

Esther has worked with many First Nations, among them, the Emergency Department on the Blackfeet Reservation (in Montana), the Blood Tribe Reserve for almost 20 years, and in the Northern Alberta community of Fort Chipewyan. She is most proud of organizing a relief mission to Haiti after the earthquake in 2010, leading a team of Blood Tribe paramedics, nurses and health care workers who looked after more than 2,000 patients during their relief efforts.

Most recently, Dr. Tailfeathers has focused on the Blood Tribe’s response to the opioid crisis including harm reduction and treatment, and addressing the upstream determinants of health. Dr. Tailfeathers is currently the Senior Medical Director, Provincial Indigenous Wellness Core, at Alberta Health Services.

In order to ask questions of our speaker in the chat feature of YouTube, you must have a YouTube account and be signed in. Please do so well ahead of the scheduled start time, so you’ll be ready. Go the YouTube Live link provided in this session flyer and on the top right of your browser click the “sign in” button. If you have Google or Gmail accounts, they can be used to sign in. If you don’t, click “Create Account” and follow along. Once you are signed in, you can return to the live stream and use the chat feature to ask your questions of the speaker. You can only participate in the chat feature while we are livestreaming.

Link to SACPA’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFUQ5mUHv1gfmMFVr8d9dNA

For further information on the Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs, visit the SACPA website.