Christian Gammon-Roy
Tribune
A concerning number of overdoses occurred in the region between March 30 and April 4. The North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit (NBPSDHU) made an emergency public service announcement on Tuesday, April 7, confirming 13 overdoses and 3 deaths over the 5-day period. According to health unit officials, the overdoses reported in this alert did not occur in West Nipissing, but data is continuously being monitored and risks are present throughout the region.
“We get reports by local EMS as well as community partners that are aware of overdoses occurring in the community, using our overdose reporting form. Then, that data is compiled every week, and it’s put on the Nipissing Parry Sound early warning system, which is like a dashboard on our health unit website,” explains Taylor Matson, Community Health Promoter for the Harm Reduction Services Program at the NBPSDHU. That dashboard, she adds, contains information on the number of overdoses, the number which resulted in death, if naloxone was administered and if 911 was called. External data is also collected from provincial sources, but as Matson explains this information can lag behind the local data.
The Health Unit relies on its community partners, as not every overdose will be reported through EMS, a call to 911, or a hospital visit. Matson describes those partners as “maybe more in-contact with their clients,” with more information to share. Partners can fill a form on the health unit website with details of an overdose, while keeping their clients anonymous.
Armed with this shared local data, the Health Unit can respond when they see spikes, such as this most recent one. “When we started to see that increase, we were able to provide certain communities with more naloxone kits as they were requested,” describes Matson. The Health Unit was also able to put out more key messaging.
External reporting does still help a lot, even with urgent situations. “We have regular reports through the Toronto Drug Checking Service, who monitor trends through the drug supply at their collection sites,” says Matson. This gives insight into the drug supply, which is often unpredictably cut and mixed with other substances. “The Toronto Drug Service just put out a report on Wednesday that 88% of fentanyl samples contained a veterinarian tranquilizer. This causes increased symptoms of extreme sleepiness or sedation, slow blood pressure or slow heart rate. The other thing to note with that, because it’s not an opioid, naloxone does not work to reverse the effects of drug poisoning with that,” warns Matson, adding that oftentimes the Toronto supply will eventually make its way into the north. Knowing about it ahead of time, and how to combat the effects of the modified drugs is just the kind of information that can be helpful.
Some insight from the front lines of substance use
The Health Unit considers homelessness as one of the social determinants for drug-use and overdose. The housing crisis which arose during the pandemic had a profound effect on homelessness in northern Ontario, which inevitably led to more substance use. “During the COVID-19 pandemic, our region saw a significant increase in opioid related overdoses and deaths, as did other regions in northern Ontario. We have seen, over the last couple of years, opioid related emergency visits, and opioid related deaths come down a little bit (…). However, it’s still higher than the provincial average,” describes Matson.
No More Tears West Nipissing continues to tackle the local homelessness problem, and are forced to deal with the reality that their clients are often victims of substance-use issues as well. “We would like them to not use drugs, but that’s not realistic,” describes Delia Greenlees, Executive Director of NMTWN. In terms of overdose prevention, Greenlees explains that sometimes all that can be done is to ensure Naloxone kits are available for their clients. “They don’t just take one Narcan kit, one isn’t usually enough,” she reveals. One NMTWN client elaborates that the number of Naloxone doses required is proportionate to the amount of opiates in a person’s system. When asked by Amanda Wells, NMTWN’s Executive Assistant of Client Services, what the highest dose of Narcan they’ve seen administered was, the client replies that it was 13.