A concerning number of opioid alerts in Windsor-Essex County.
Since May 22, there have been five opioid alerts issued by the local Health Unit’s Opioid and Substance Use Notification System.
The most recent alert was issued on July 3, where 17 opioid overdoses were reported among emergency department visits between June 23 and June 29.
Of the 17 overdoses reported, 13 involved fentanyl.
The five alerts in total have seen 61 overdoses reported, 43 of which involved fentanyl.
Partners involved in the Windsor-Essex Community Opioid and Substance Strategy (WECOSS), including the WECHU, Windsor Regional Hospital, Essex Windsor-EMS, Erie Shores Healthcare, and Police Services, are continuing to monitor the increases and are working to understand more about the reported cases.
Eric Nadalin, Director of Public Health Programs at WECHU, says opioid overdoses have been increasing pretty steadily in the community over the past 10 years but what they've seen over the last month and a bit is something they haven't seen before.
"It's certainly a very high frequency over a short period of time, and of course it's extremely concerning for us and our partners. I mean as the backbone organization behind the Windsor-Essex Community Opioid and Substance Strategy, WECHU works closely and is constant communication with all of our partners that are a part of that network. And is constantly looking to develop solutions to address this," he said.
Over the last number of weeks, there have been a number of very exciting and promising initiatives introduced according to Nadalin, which he believes will make a difference in the long term.
He says in the immediate term, the partners are getting together to discuss the situation and possible solutions.
"We will be pulling together a partnership meeting among the WECOSS leadership committee to see what is in place, is there anything more that can be done in the short term and how we might support our community through what seems to be a really rough patch over the past several weeks."
It's a challenging situation without supervised consumption services available at the moment, especially when that is something Nadalin says could move the needle in improving the current situation.
The province announced a pause in approvals of new consumption and treatment services sites due to an ongoing review following an incident in Toronto back in October.
The SafePoint site in downtown Windsor has sat empty since the end of December, after funding provided by the Health Unit ran out.
Nadalin says it would certainly help the situation to have it back open, but he's hopeful recent announcements of primary care expansion in the shelter system, expansion of crisis outreach teams, and mental health and addictions crisis programs at Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare relocating to the downtown will have an impact.
"Those are all very promising for the future in our community, but like I said, I think that bringing together the partners around a solution in the short term will hopefully yield some good options as well. And hopefully implementing some additional harm reduction services and reaching out to our partners," he said.
In terms of SafePoint and a potential reopening, Nadalin says they haven't been provided a timeline from the province.