Opioid overdoses surging at Blood First Nation

New treatment plan sees patients taken directly to transition program

A southern Alberta First Nation is reeling after a rash of overdoses — including four deaths — related to the powerful opioid carfentanil.

Kevin Cowan, chief executive of the Blood Tribe Department of Health, said after the overdose numbers had remained relatively stable over the past year, “the problem is escalating.”

“In October, there were 37 overdoses attended to by our emergency services. There was one death.

“If this was three or four years ago, there would’ve been 47 deaths this month, not 47 overdoses.”

A state of emergency was declared for the Blood Tribe after 36 opioid overdoses and one death occurred between Feb. 23 and March 25, Cowan said.

Since then, there had been roughly 20 overdoses per month. But just last week, 22 people overdosed between Tuesday and Thursday alone.

All the departments on the reserve have come together, Cowan said, and assembled a plan of action centred around a funding request for a safe withdrawal management site.

“Currently, our EMS staff administer (opioid overdose antidote) Naloxone, take them to a local hospital but they are then quickly released,” he said.

“Typically, they enter the same pattern and overdose again. Bringing them to the hospital is not working for us, for the community.”

The new plan will see EMS staff take overdose patients directly to a transition program.

“We believe it’s the first time in Canada this has been done ... (Patients) will be kept for 10 to 14 days, our physicians will administer an opioid replacement like Suboxone and work with our addictions and mental health staff.”

A doctor on the reserve, Esther Tailfeathers, said carfentanil is being mixed with other drugs and sold on the streets, adding there’s also been a surge in crystal meth usage.

“It’s been a rough two weeks. Everyone is tired. All of the frontline workers are really tired, EMS, police. Even our emergency room in Cardston has seen an escalating number of overdoses,” she said.

“We’re dealing with a lot of grief on our reserve. We’ve got a number of kids that have been taken into the child welfare system because their parents have died.”

Officials on the reserve have been going door to door with Naloxone kits to give to residents, but Tailfeathers said the potency of carfentanil requires more of the overdose antidote to have an effect.

“Usually, the Naloxone kits have three vials of 0.4 (mg/mL) of Naloxone in the vials, but it has been taking six to eight vials of Naloxone to revive some patients,” Tailfeathers said.

The reserve is expecting another spike in overdoses the weekend of Dec. 14, Tailfeathers said, due in part to residents receiving social assistance and tribe payments that week.

“We’re recognizing when there is money in the community, dealers know that as well and they swoop into the community,” she said.

“They bring the really potent stuff in and they ’re out of the community in hours. We start seeing overdoses almost immediately.”

Tailfeathers said the reserve needs help.

“We’re calling on people and physicians off-reserve to help this crisis,” she said.

“I think the province needs to look at widening the scope of treatment programs.”