NALOXONE FOR ALL CITY COPS
'Circumstances have changed,' chief says
All front-line Windsor police officers will be equipped with naloxone within weeks, Chief Pam Mizuno and Mayor Drew Dilkens announced Friday.
The decision was made following this week's urgent conversion of the downtown aquatic centre into a temporary shelter for homeless people when the Downtown Mission was closed because of a COVID-19 outbreak.
“The circumstances have changed for us,” the chief said. “We now have officers who are 24/7 at the isolation and recovery centre and the emergency shelter for people experiencing homelessness. The officers come from all areas of patrol, even investigations, and at this point the best decision, it appears, is to have all our officers carry naloxone in response to the redeployment at these centres.”
The city operates the isolation and recovery centre for homeless people infected with the novel coronavirus.
Both centres deal with a “difficult population,” the mayor said, referring to the fact that many people experiencing homelessness also suffer from mental illness and addictions.
“Let's train everybody, make sure anyone is able to respond, because we don't know who will be put into those positions,” agreed Dilkens.
There are about 500 sworn officers in the Windsor Police Service. Those who work on the front line, who comprise the majority of officers, will carry naloxone, a drug that works as an antidote to overdoses from opioids.
“The officers that are patrolling the streets, answering calls for service, will be carrying naloxone,” Mizuno said.
They are expected to be trained in the use of the Narcan nasal spray version of the drug and equipped with the free kits within weeks, she said.
The force has already applied to receive the kits, and training is now available.
Only officers in the detention, city centre patrol and problem-oriented policing units, about 100 officers in total, currently carry naloxone. It has been used twice this year already, Mizuno said.
The Windsor Police Association has been asking the force for several years to equip its members with naloxone.
“We're pleased to hear that the decision has finally been made,” said association president Shawn Mccurdy. “It's been a longtime coming.
“We deal with individuals who may have narcotics on them, and we worry about cross-contamination,” he said. “So it's important for the public, but it's also important for officers' safety as well.”
No officer has had to use naloxone after being exposed to an opioid, he said, “but for the minimal cost and minimal training to equip our officers with naloxone and actually carry it, it's the right decision.”
It has been a contentious issue for several years, with the mayor, who chairs the police board, and former chief Al Frederick criticized for not arming officers with naloxone. Mizuno also initially opposed it when she was named chief in 2019.
Dilkens has said in the past that data did not justify officers carrying the drug and that administering it is best left to those medically trained to do it, like paramedics.
He also expressed concern that police would face pressure to carry other medications like Epipens or nitroglycerine for heart attacks.
Windsor was believed to be the only major municipality in Ontario whose officers didn't carry naloxone.
Some officers were reported to carry the drug anyway, before the department authorized it.
Mizuno confirmed last fall that officers in the detention unit would be equipped with naloxone. That expanded to officers in the problem-oriented policing and city centre patrol units in January.
City council voted unanimously in January to direct firefighters to carry the drug.
There were 25 occasions during 10 months last year when firefighters arrived first on the scene of a suspected overdose, ahead of paramedics, but were not equipped with the life-saving drug, Fire Chief Stephen Laforet told council.
“Putting it on the trucks right now is not a significant burden, and there is the potential to help somebody in the future,” he said at the time.
Councillors at the same meeting also endorsed “full deployment” of naloxone to all first responders, including police.
An “extremely high” number of fentanyl-related emergency department visits in late January and early February prompted the latest in a string of alerts from the Windsor-essex Community Opioid and Substance Strategy.
Twenty-two people visited local emergency departments for fentanyl use between Jan. 27 and Feb. 3. Sixteen of those cases were overdoses.
Opioid deaths have surged across Ontario during the pandemic. The increase is believed to be caused inadvertently by measures to protect people from COVID-19, a study last fall concluded. The study cited isolation, less access to treatment and resorting to toxic street drugs because supply channels have been disrupted.