Province working on plan to prevent opioid abuse, fatal overdoses
Chief Public Health Officer hopes to prevent rise in prescription narcotic deaths seen in other provinces
P.E.I.'s Chief Public Health Officer hopes to have an action plan in place in a few months aimed at preventing prescription narcotic abuse, addictions, and deaths.
Dr. Heather Morrison told CBC opioid use is not yet a health crisis in P.E.I., and she hopes to keep it that way.
"Thankfully we are not seeing the spike of accidental opioid-related deaths that they are in certain pockets of B.C, for instance," she said.
But, she stressed it's important to keep an eye on the situation.
'We need to pay attention to it'
"We need to pay attention to it," she said.
She's co-chairing a group with the deputy justice minister to develop an action plan. They're consulting with a wide group of professionals including physicians, pharmacists, police, mental health and addictions, EMS, dentistry, and the coroner's office.
Her group will look at how opioids are prescribed and monitored.
The most commonly prescribed narcotic pain medications on P.E.I. are Dilaudid, Percocet and Tylenol 3, she said.
"We have had a very steady number of prescriptions of opioids for the last five years being prescribed in P.E.I.," she said.
One factor they will examine is the impact of an aging population, which tends to experience more cases of chronic pain.
'Rules for opioids'
"Opioids do treat pain and there are certain rules for opioids, but we have to use them appropriately, in the right place for the right person," said Morrison.
New national guidelines are expected soon that she says will help her group.
Her group will also look at methadone treatment, needle exchange programs and pain clinics.
More than 800 Islanders are currently prescribed methadone and suboxone — two medications used to treat opioid addiction — and there are four methadone clinics which currently have no waiting lists, she said.
Monitoring the situation
P.E.I. did bring in the Narcotic Safety and Awareness Act in 2013 that allows officials to monitor prescriptions for narcotics. It was amended last spring to allow government to intervene if there is a problem.
"We will be trying to use that to monitor what's being prescribed, also for the education of physicians and other prescribers about the best ways to treat chronic pain."
"Let's try to have an action plan in place, try to make sure we have a range of things that we can be doing to try to prevent and mitigate this from occurring as it has in other parts of the country," said Morrison.
Following a national summit on opioid abuse in Ottawa in November, Morrison's office did a review of prescription narcotics, overdoses and deaths.
It found on average, there were 1.5 accidental fatal opioid overdoses a year on P.E.I. over the past decade, including four in 2014 and five in 2015.
More deaths from alcohol
Offering some context, Morrison said about one per cent of P.E.I.'s population has been identified as having a problem with opioids.
That compares with about 25 per cent of the population having a problem with high blood pressure.
In addition, "we have at least five times the deaths related to alcohol as we do to our opioids" from alcohol poisoning and chronic misuse, she added.
Out of last fall's national summit, Morrison and her counterparts across the country formed a special advisory committee on opioid abuse.
They continue to connect every two weeks by teleconference to discuss the evolving issue.
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With files from Maggie Brown