The Surrey Union of Drug Users is standing in solidarity with a Vancouver Island doctor who resigned after being put on leave over a pop-up unsanctioned overdose site.
In November 2024, Dr. Jess Wilder, an addictions and family medicine practitioner in Nanaimo, helped set up an overdose prevention site on the grounds of Nanaimo General Hospital and Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria.
Wilder says she was placed on administrative leave on Jan. 22 from her physician lead positions in harm reduction and education, as well as addiction medicine at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital. Wilder, a co-founder of the group Doctors for Safer Drug Policy, says in a resignation letter dated Feb. 5 that she's leaving her positions with Island Health "immediately."
The Surrey Union of Drug Users is alarmed and "extremely frustrated" by Island Health's decision to place Wilder on administrative leave, according to Aaron Bailey, MSc, a SUDU community organizer and part of the research and policy committee.
Bailey calls the decision by the health authority a political one.
"One that has connected to the BC NDP kind of broader shift away from harm reduction against the advice of front-line clinicians, against the advice of other researchers," Bailey said. "So it's the specific frustration about what's been happening to Dr. Wilder, but also the Ministry of Health, through the power that is held over health authorities, and the frequency with which those health authorities are pulled away from evidence-based decision making by a Ministry of Health that is increasingly politicized."
Island Health's actions 'quite cowardly': SUDU
"We've seen countless examples of allied physicians doing work just like Dr. Wilder and have always been vindicated by history and health evidence," Bailey said. "So that's the lens through which we see Dr Wilder's work in Surrey. We think that the actions of Island Health are quite cowardly at this essential political moment, and we hope that people change their approach."
For example, things like syringe exchange, sanctioned supervised consumption sites, take-home naloxone, and access to anti-retroviral drugs were fought for by social movements who worked alongside allied health-care workers during the HIV/AIDS crisis, SUDU notes.
Elder Mona Woodward (Sparkling Fast Rising River Woman), who sits on the SUDU board of directors, said in a SUDU post, “From an Indigenous perspective, Island Health should be using an intergenerational trauma-informed approach with their patients and taking into consideration the barriers people go through to get care. What Dr. Wilder has done is in alignment with Island's health’s 'so-called' decolonization goals. Now they've gone against her. Why? To keep the colonial framework alive.”
SUDU members often access the unregulated drug supply and they have often avoided going to "or denied urgent hospital-based care due to a lack of harm reduction services in hospitals and a provincewide rollback of harm reduction services," SUDU says.
"Unsanctioned pop-up OPS, like that supported by Dr. Wilder in November, keep us, our friends, and our family members alive while allowing us to access health care like everyone else," reads the post on the SUDU website.
The group says that Island Health's response sends a "chilling message" to other clinicians hoping to do similar work.
"By leaving Dr. Wilder with little choice but to resign, Island Health has decided to unjustly punish a community-engaged physician leader for supporting the delivery of urgently needed, evidence-based care for people who use drugs. SUDU urges Island Health to reconsider its misinformed approach, issue an apology, and commit to engaging with Doctors for Safer Drug Policy to implement the organization’s demands," SUDU says.
Stephen Meier, on SUDU's board of directors, said Wilder's actions have saved lives.
"As a doctor, she’s probably lost a lot of her patients to preventable drug poisoning, so it makes complete sense that she would be an advocate. If anything, we need more doctors like her, and it's wrong for Island Health to punish her for fulfilling her hippocratic oath,” Meier said.
Over a dozen more community-based advocacy groups across B.C. have stood up in support of Dr. Wilder.
Administrative leave was not 'punitive': health authority
Wilder said her decision to resign did "not come lightly" and expressed her "growing lack of faith" in the Addiction Medicine Consult Service leadership team.
"Our attempts to dissuade and suppress the public advocacy work of physicians demanding evidence-based, life-saving interventions will have harmful consequences for those patients most at risk," she said.
She added that she worries about the message it sends to physicians about being placed on leave "as a punitive response to my advocacy."
"Advocacy is a core competency of being a physician. I worry your actions will discourage other physicians – along with other health-care workers who have less socioeconomic security than we are afforded – from doing what is right over what is easy," she said.
A spokesperson for Island Health said in an email to the Now-Leader that they normally do not comment on a person's employment history, but since the resignation letter was made public, they can confirm they have received it.
They added that Wilder was not placed on "administrative leave as a punitive action."
"Administrative leaves are used to ensure that individuals who are party to an investigation continue to be compensated while a fair investigation is underway."
-With files from the Canadian Press
