THE DEADLIEST DRUG
An online database unveiled Wednesday to track opioid deaths in Ontario shows that fentanyl has overtaken all other opioids to become Ottawa’s deadliest drug.
A new provincial website launched Wednesday shows fentanyl overtook all other opioids to become Ottawa’s deadliest drug in 2015.
Fentanyl was found in the bloodstreams of 17 of the 45 people who died from opioid-related drug overdoses in the Ottawa region in 2015, according to data made available on the province’s Interactive Opioid Tracker.
Fentanyl was present in 37.8 per cent of all fatal opioid overdoses recorded by the regional health authority, the Champlain LHIN, making it more dangerous than hydromorphone, commonly known as Dilaudid (33.3 per cent), codeine (20 per cent), morphine (17.8), oxycodone (13.3 per cent), heroin (11.1 per cent) and methadone (6.7 per cent).
In 2014, Dilaudid was the region’s most dangerous drug, and the year before, it was heroin.
Fentanyl, an opioid used to treat the severe pain of cancer or surgery, has been available on Ottawa streets for years in tablets and patches, but it has more recently become available in a bootleg, powdered form that has proved lethal. The fentanyl made in clandestine labs is 30 to 50 times more powerful than heroin, another white powder, and is sometimes sold as heroin since it’s cheaper and easier to manufacture.
The province’s new opioid tracker makes a wide range of data available to health-care officials and members of the public concerned about the epidemic.
It was unveiled Wednesday by Health Minister Eric Hoskins, Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Williams and Chief Coroner Dr. Dirk Huyer. In a joint statement, the three hailed the online database as a tool that will “strengthen our strategy as we work to combat this crisis in a targeted and informed way.”
The Ontario government has come under fire in the past for failing to track the opioid crisis in real time as it unfolds in living rooms and emergency rooms across the province.
The new opioid tracker will not serve as an early warning system for the public since its data is at least six months — and sometimes a year — out of date.
But Ottawa Public Health officials welcomed the provincial initiative Wednesday as an important source of information about longterm trends.
“It can be used to guide policy decisions or evaluate large-scale interventions,” said Donna Casey, a spokeswoman for Ottawa Public Health.
Among other things, the webbased tool allows the public to examine data that tracks opioid-related emergency department visits, hospitalizations and deaths between 2003 and early 2016.
The data shows 412 people in Ontario died from an unintentional opioid overdose in the first six months of 2016 — an increase of 11 per cent from the same period in 2015.
Last month, for the first time, Ontario hospitals were asked by the province to begin tracking opioid overdoses each week to gain an almost real-time snapshot of the evolving crisis. That information is being shared with local public health agencies and other key health-care planners.
In Ottawa, the hospital information has been made available by the city’s public health department. The latest figures show there were 319 emergency department visits to Ottawa hospitals related to drug overdoses in the first three months of the year.
The fentanyl made in clandestine labs is 30 to 50 times more powerful than heroin, another white powder …