Michelle Gamage, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Tyee

Hundreds of patients are having non-fatal overdoses at Surrey Memorial Hospital every year, according to data obtained through a freedom of information request. But fatal overdoses are rare.

According to the BC Coroners Service, four people died after taking illicit, unregulated drugs while they were patients at Surrey Memorial between 2020 and 2025. These deaths are part of an ongoing public health emergency in which a toxic, unregulated street supply of drugs has killed more than 18,179 British Columbians since April 14, 2016.

For the staggering number of dead, there is an even higher number of people who have a non-fatal overdose because of medical interventions like naloxone, which can temporarily reverse an opioid overdose. Non-fatal overdoses can still cause long-term injury, depending on how long a person’s breathing was reduced or stopped by an overdose.

According to the data obtained through freedom of information, or FOI, there were 2,066 non-fatal overdoses at Surrey Memorial between Jan. 1, 2020, and Dec. 4, 2025.

Surrey Memorial isn’t the only hospital where patients are experiencing overdoses due to the unregulated toxic drug supply, although it is where a little under one-third of all poisoning events are happening within the Fraser Health region.

There were 6,280 non-fatal unregulated drug events across 12 hospitals in Fraser Health from 2020 to 2025. The BC Coroners Service told The Tyee there were 14 unregulated drug deaths at those hospitals in that time frame.

After Surrey Memorial, the hospital with the highest number of inpatient overdoses was Abbotsford Regional Hospital (989), followed by Royal Columbian Hospital (644), Burnaby Hospital (570), Ridge Meadows Hospital (509), Chilliwack General Hospital (506), Langley Memorial Hospital (470) and Peace Arch Hospital (337), according to the FOI response.

Four hospital patients died as a result of taking unregulated drugs during the five-year period at Abbotsford Regional Hospital, two at Royal Columbian Hospital, two at Burnaby Hospital, one at Chilliwack General Hospital and one at Peace Arch Hospital, according to the BC Coroners Service.

Eagle Ridge Hospital, Delta Hospital, Mission Memorial Hospital and Fraser Canyon Hospital each reported fewer than 100 non-fatal overdoses during the five-year period.

Addiction medicine doctors have told The Tyee data is essential to understanding the importance of opening hospital-based overdose prevention sites.

It’s also key to developing public understanding about why the sites are necessary, doctors added. This is because it is safer for both patients and staff when patients who use substances are able to use them at adjacent overdose prevention sites, rather than feeling pressure to either be discharged early or use substances illicitly in places where they can find privacy, such as hospital bathrooms.

Most of the health authorities The Tyee requested overdose data from said they would not be willing or able to provide it.

Interior Health said the request unreasonably violated patient confidentiality. Vancouver Coastal Health said the data is only collected on its BC Patient Safety and Learning System, which can’t be accessed through an FOI request. Island Health never gave a formal response but said it wouldn’t be able to provide the data. Northern Health never responded to the FOI request, even after multiple followups.

The Provincial Health Services Authority and Providence Health Care provided the data but did not distinguish between patients who overdosed in the community and were brought to the emergency department, and patients in hospital who had an overdose.

“The toxic drug poisoning crisis remains a serious public health emergency,” Dr. Rahul Walia, medical health officer for Fraser Health, told The Tyee in an emailed statement.

The Tyee asked Fraser Health for an interview to discuss the FOI. The health authority sent an emailed statement from Walia instead.

“Fraser Health is dedicated to doing everything we can to prevent toxic drug poisoning events and save lives in the communities we serve,” Walia said. That includes providing the “vital, life-saving support” of overdose prevention sites.

A list of all overdose prevention sites in the area served by Fraser Health can be found on its website.

Fraser Health has overdose prevention services at Surrey Memorial Hospital, the Abbotsford Regional Hospital and Cancer Centre campus, Langley Memorial Hospital, Peace Arch Hospital, Ridge Meadows Hospital and Chilliwack General Hospital, Walia said.

“In 2025, these sites supported thousands of visits, distributed harm reduction supplies and connected people to the health and social supports they need,” he said.

Walia said an episodic overdose prevention service team was established at Surrey Memorial in 2023.

The team can supervise patients and visitors who use substances in dedicated areas outside of the hospital or can escort people to the overdose prevention site at the Quibble Creek Sobering and Assessment Centre, he said.

“Discreet support is provided for people who smoke or inhale substances,” Walia said.

Fraser Health is continuing to assess where other overdose prevention sites are needed as part of its ongoing co-ordinated response to the toxic drug crisis, Walia added.

The Tyee has been trying to access data on fatal and non-fatal overdoses in hospitals across the province for several months. It’s been surprisingly hard to get data on non-fatal overdoses.

Fraser Health is the first health authority to give us the exact data we asked for.

In June 2025, The Tyee filed FOI requests with health authorities, asking for a breakdown of the number of fatal and non-fatal overdoses, per hospital, over the last five years.

We also asked health authorities to note when and where overdose prevention sites had opened so we could compare fatalities before and after the sites had opened.

We did not file an FOI request with the First Nations Health Authority because it does not directly oversee any hospitals in B.C.

When The Tyee didn’t hear back from Fraser Health for several months, we followed up and learned our request had gotten lost. Fraser Health answered the FOI shortly after, releasing the requested data.

From the data provided by Fraser Health, which covers 2020 to 2025, it’s not clear what impact the hospital overdose prevention services had, because the health authority didn’t say when four of its five services were opened. For Surrey Memorial, there was no clear change in fatal overdoses when comparing the time periods before and after the site opened.

Non-fatal overdoses at hospitals across BC

In a recent interview with The Tyee, provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said health authorities aren’t required to report overdoses or drug poisoning events to the province. She stressed how complicated it might be to try to collect this data.

“We don’t have a systematic way of identifying everything that happens to any individual when they’re in the hospital,” she said. “The purpose of charts, hospitalizations and care is individual. The collection of data on that is secondary, to be honest.”

Looking at the data The Tyee has been able to access, it’s clear that St. Paul’s Hospital is still the provincial outlier when it comes to patients affected by the unregulated drug supply.

From 2020 to May 22, 2025, there were 11,412 overdoses at St. Paul’s, including 14 deaths while at the hospital and 19 deaths within 30 days of discharge, according to data from the BC Coroners Service and from Providence Health, accessed through an FOI request.

That 11,412 number includes hospital inpatients and people who overdosed in the community and were brought to the emergency department, so it can’t be directly compared with any of the hospitals in the Fraser Health Authority, which reported only inpatient overdose numbers.

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