WPD Ambulance paramedic Ferdi Bezuidenhout, centre, is a volunteer member of Tawaw Outreach with Jessica Falcon, left, and Heather (aka mom) Ross right. Bezuidenhout works with the team to provide street people with harm-reduction supplies. Geoff Lee Meridian Source
Ferdi Bezuidenhout is earning his angel wings volunteering to help homeless people and street drug users in Lloydminster stay safe and kick the habit when they are ready to.
Bezuidenhout is a full-time WPD Ambulance paramedic who spends his off hours helping Tawaw Outreach workers, Jessica Falcon and Heather Ross from the Midwest Indigenous Society hand out harm reduction supplies to street users and addicts.
He is also one of the first new non-Indigenous members of the Society known as Indigenous allies.
In addition, he helps local Society president Crystal Miller regarding the housing development for Métis, non-status and status Indians in Saskatchewan.
“We do some harm reduction on the weekends and the week as well. It depends on the requirement on the streets,” said Bezuidenhout.
“We basically give out clean supplies, needles, and we take the used needles, so we are reducing some risks there.”
They also give out pipes and other sanitized drug paraphernalia along with meals and referral assistance to other social services.
Bezuidenhout says heroin, cocaine and meth are the most common illegal drugs in Lloydminster, but he cautions, the problem is, it keeps on changing.
“There’s a new one that comes from the U.S. called ‘Tranq’ that’s really high risk for everybody,” he said.
Tranq is a dangerous large animal tranquilizer called Xylazine found in fentanyl and other street drugs.
“If someone overdoses on it, it’s not good. There is not a really good outcome on that,” said Bezuidenhout.
He says he has experienced people overdosing on opioids during his job as a professional paramedic but not as an outreach volunteer yet.
“The training as a paramedic definitely helps and just making sure the ladies are safe—Jessica and Heather,” he said.
“We start at midnight because that’s when users are the most active and we go up to five o’clock in the morning.
Bezuidenhout says he’s got a couple of friends that are going to start working with Tawaw Outreach as well a couple of evenings.
“So we will have a good team reaching everybody,” he said.
Bezuidenhout explains the Tawaw team provides users with a safer experience and they also talk to them in regards to getting off drugs.
“That’s why it’s really good news that we have success stories of people who’ve decided they are done with this,” he said adding his volunteerism is personally rewarding too.
“It’s definitely rewarding seeing the changes in the people’s faces. When I started with them they were really skeptical about me being there. They’ve warmed up to me now,” said Bezuidenhout.
“They will talk and bring their personal problems to me and we try to support each other in that way.”
Bezuidenhout says drug use was a growing problem in Lloydminster but it’s flatlined at the current time.
“It’s been basically stagnant now, so it’s good news. We get a lot of new faces in town, so the population regarding that is growing,” he said.
He also stressed drug users range in age from 18 to 60 and come from all walks of life and ethnic groups with a common cause.
“Everyone basically has their own story that they share with us, but it’s almost all trauma based,” he said.
