Inmate dies of fentanyl overdose, sources say
Another inmate has died at the city’s embattled provincial jail, on a weekend when correctional officers say they saved two people from overdoses but couldn’t save the third.
The Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services on Tuesday confirmed the death Sunday night of an inmate at the Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre, but provided no other details.
The man died of an overdose of fentanyl, jail sources say.
He was identified as Mike Fall, in his 40s, by friends and jail sources.
“He was well loved and his passing will affect a lot of us,” said Penny Drake, who grew up in London’s east end with Fall. Fentanyl, an opioid painkiller that’s become a notorious street drug behind a wave of deaths across Canada, is an opioid that can be dozens of times more powerful than heroin.
Fall had heart troubles and sometimes struggled with addiction, his friends said.
It’s the second death within two months at EMDC, where correctional officers say they’re struggling to handle inmates’ opioid addictions and mental illnesses.
Raymond George Major, 52, died of suicide June 6 after a harrowing two days of withdrawing from opioids, possibly fentanyl, during a weekend lockdown, sources say.
“There’s no training for the big problem (fentanyl),” said one correctional officer, who requested anonymity.
Fentanyl has become far too common in the jail, another officer said. Any number of factors at EMDC could have exacerbated the quick deadliness of fentanyl.
One inmate told EMDC was in lockdown on the weekend, as it has been frequently of late because of staff shortages. Inmates tried to get help, but couldn’t get the attention of officers busy during the staff shortage, he said.
But a correctional officer said the unit where Fall died on Sunday was not in lockdown. In any case, correctional officers at EMDC make checks only every 30 minutes, unable to see the ranges from their stations due to the physical design of the 40-year-old jail.
As well, EMDC’s main facility doesn’t yet have the kind of body scanner that can pick up drugs by X-ray. The province has promised the new scanner will be installed this fall. Correctional officers say they’re not yet allowed or trained to carry naloxone, the drug that can stop an opioid overdose if administered quickly.
The overdoses reveal problems within EMDC involving security, staffing levels and health care, but a larger societal problem as well, said Kevin Egan, a London lawyer representing hundreds of inmates in civil action
“They are warehousing addicts instead of treating them. You can’t find detox beds and rehabilitation space is almost unavailable.”
Fall’s death is the seventh in the past five years at EMDC.