Some of the lessons learnt from Canada’s opioid crisis have long been implemented down under.
Two pharmacy researchers presenting at the University of Sydney’s Emerging Health Policy & Economics Research Conference say that prioritising service integration is a key lesson for Australia to learn from Canada’s opioids crisis.
“I think it’s learning what not to do in the first place, but also being able to put into place more harm reduction measures [such as] thinking about decriminalisation,” University of Sydney Pharmacy School Dr Kellia Chiu stated.
In Canada, around 20 people per day die from opioid toxicity, whereas Australia only records around 3.5 opioid-related deaths per day.
A reason for Canada’s current treatment inaccessibility is a fragmentation of supportive care and ineffective health funding, according to Dr Chiu.
Prescription policy was also reportedly a common barrier to treatment accessibility.
These recommendations advocated for implementing effective harm reduction measures that would have aided Canada’s opioid situation.
Dr Chiu reiterated that a major flaw of Canada’s opioid regulation was a lack of opioid use disorder care services integrated into clinical care.
“Opioid use disorder doesn’t get normalised in clinical care. It’s often sort of separated out,” Dr Chiu told delegates.
“We need to reframe what we mean by harm and what we mean by treatment as well.
“Particularly in the provinces that are helmed by more conservative governments, you definitely get more of that language around recovery-oriented systems of care.”
In the Australian context, the breakdown of stigmatisation when it comes to recovery-oriented care in opioid treatment is considered to be the frontline of advocacy.
Related
Australia’s opioid-related statistics are currently attained from PBS data sources, which are expected to improve with the further integration of digital health.
“There is now evolving maturity of digital health infrastructure, and also data capability in using this real world evidence so that we have much, much greater opportunities to enhance our capability,” University of Sydney PhD candidate Judith Mackson said.
“My finding is that there’s no existing mapping of this complex ecosystem with respect to how we can monitor medicines at the population level.”
Data has shown a decline in opioid use in the past five years, a trend which has been attributed partly to Australia’s response to the World Health Organization’s global challenge on patient safety.
“Opioid analgesics was a priority action in this global response that also included, having another measure of oral morphine equivalents being more widely used to see what the threshold is for the amount of opioids used that is likely to cause harm,” Ms Mackson stated.
“Then that there should be better guidance for practitioners about making sure that when patients are initiated onto opioids that there’s a plan for discontinuation.”
The Emerging Health Policy & Economics Research Conference, hosted by the Leeder Centre for Health Policy, Economics and Data, was held at the University of Sydney on Monday 11 August 2025.
