Opioid-related deaths plague region
There were 43 opioid deaths in Ulster County in 2017, compared to 27 in 2015
The Mid-Hudson Valley region saw higher death rates from heroin and opioid pain relievers in 2016 than elsewhere in the state, according to a report issued by the state Health Department.
Meanwhile, Greene and Sullivan County in the Catskills were among 14 counties outside of New York City with the highest death rates statewide. In Ulster County, both heroin deaths and deaths from all opioid drugs — including heroin — dropped in 2017 from 2016 when the number of those deaths hit a three-year high. But even with the decrease, the number of people that died from opioid drugs still far exceeded those who died in 2015.
According to reports issued by the state in 2017 an 2018, Ulster County saw 14 deaths in 2017 from heroin, down from the 24 deaths in 2016. In 2015, there were 15 heroin deaths in the county. Deaths from all opioids, which include heroin and all other prescription and nonprescription opioids, including fentanyl, are significantly higher, according to the reports.
In 2015, Ulster County saw 27 deaths from opioid-based drugs. That number doubled in 2016 to 54 deaths, before dropping off slightly to 43 deaths in 2017.
By contrast, Dutchess County saw the number of both heroin deaths and deaths from all opioids skyrocket in 2017, when,
according to the preliminary numbers issued by the state, that county saw 74 opioid deaths, a 45 percent increase over the 51 in 2016, and 41 heroin deaths, up 46 percent in 2016.
Sullivan County had 26 deaths from all opioids and 13 from heroin in 2017, up significantly from the number of deaths in 2016, while Greene County had 11 opioid-related deaths, including 6 from heroin in 2017, one less than seen in 2016.
Orange and Columbia County also saw deaths from opioid- and heroin related deaths increase in 2017 over 2016, while Delaware County, said decreases in the number of people who died from opioid and heroin overdoses.
According to the state’s preliminary 2017 report, statewide, the rate of all opioid deaths per 100,000 of the population doubled between 2010 and 2015, but the number of heroin deaths increased by more than five times during that same time frame.
Males died from opioid deaths at consistently higher rates than females, according to the report, with the death rate for men in 2015 nearly three times higher than the death rate for females, although the death rate for both male and females steadily increased between 2010 and 2015.
A breakdown by ethnicity showed that non Hispanic whites had consistently higher rates for overdose deaths than other ethic groups and that the death rate from opioids among non-Hispanic whites nearly doubled between 2010, when the death rate statewide was 7.3 deaths per 100,000 of the population to 14.7 deaths per 100,000 of the population in 2017.
For the past several years, officials across the region have been focusing greater attention on combatting the opioid epidemic, through the formation of task forces designed to investigate best practices in dealing with addiction, to pressuring the state to compel chain pharmacies to take back unused prescription drugs, to making the overdose antidote Naxalone more readily available to police and other first responders.
Naxalone, which quickly reverses opioid-related overdoses, has been used hundreds of times since 2016 — the first year state numbers are available — by emergency management services personnel, law enforcement and in community opioid overdose prevention programs.
In Ulster County, which according to the 2010 census had a population of 182,421, Naxalone was administered to overdose victims roughly 264 times in 2017, up from 189 times in 2016.
And between January and March of 2018, first responders used the lifesaving drug roughly 33 times.
Across the river in Dutchess, which had a population of 297,745 at the time of the 2010 census, Naxalone was used to reverse the affects of an opioid overdose 386 times in 2017 and 76 times between January and March of 2018.