Report: Deadly ODs hit nine of 10 Mass. towns
Someone has fatally overdosed in nine out of every 10 Bay State communities since 2013, according to newly released state data that underscores the drug epidemic’s vast reach since the issue exploded in Massachusetts.
The town-by-town data, the first the state has released covering all of 2016, show that 308 of the state’s 351 communities have recorded at least one deadly overdose in the past four years — a rate of 88 percent. The death toll spans from Boston, which had 196 estimated overdoses in 2016, to one of its smallest in New Ashford, a town of just 288 people that had one overdose in 2015.
The sobering tally highlights what Gov. Charlie Baker yesterday called the epidemic’s “negative momentum” in the face of years of efforts to address problems.
“We continue to invest new resources to strengthen services and to underscore our commitment to an intensive focus on this crisis,” Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders said.
It did come, however, with a seeming glimmer of hope: Through the first quarter of this year, the state recorded 447 estimated overdoses, which actually marked a 10 percent drop from the same period last year, when the state recorded 495.
It’s one of few positive trends the Department of Public Health’s quarterly reports have shown as fentanyl, a powerful painkiller, accounts now for nearly 70 percent of all fatal overdoses.
It’s also difficult to tell if the drop — spanning just three months — is a concrete trend. Jim Hooley, the chief of Boston EMS, says paramedics there have seen 973 calls for “narcotic-related illness” so far this year, which is actually more than the 916 at this point in 2016.
Hooley cautioned that the state has access to more kinds of data than he does and that his numbers aren’t meant to contradict the state’s. Though, he added, “I don’t know if anybody is ready to claim victory.
“All of us are trying to put more and more resources toward it,” he said. “It’s so hard to turn around.”