Opioid overdoses are surging in Windsor-Essex. Public health is asking the community for help

A significant surge in opioid overdoses in Windsor-Essex has the local health unit on high alert and community advocates pushing the government to answer questions on the city's defunct drug consumption site. 

The most recent alert sent to the community last week reported 22 overdoses in a single week — the highest this year. Since the beginning of June, the Windsor-Essex Community Opioid and Substance Strategy (WECOSS) has issued five opioid overdose alerts, with a majority involving fentanyl. 

There was only one week last month — June 9 to June 15 — that wasn't included in this string of alerts. 

And while warmer months tend to see an increase in overdose activity, a public health official with Windsor-Essex's health unit says they've never released this many alerts in such a short period of time. 

"It's something that we're certainly very concerned about," said Eric Nadalin, director of public health programs at the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit (WECHU). 

According to data from WECHU, there were 60 calls to Essex-Windsor EMS for a suspected opioid overdose in June. That's the highest number of calls this year and 16 more calls compared to the average seen in June of 2022 and 2023.

"As a community member who's lost a child to this crisis, it makes me extremely frustrated and angry," Kathy Moreland said of the recent spike. 

Moreland is a member of local advocacy groups pushing for more resources to support people who use substances, including the CTS Coalition and Moms Stop the Harm. She's also the incoming president for the Windsor branch of the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario (RNAO). 

"It makes me feel extremely helpless." 

According to coroner's data posted on The Ontario Drug Policy Research Network website, in the first three months of this year, there were 25 confirmed and probable drug-related deaths in Windsor-Essex. 

Probable deaths are ones where the cause of death is still being determined, but the toxicology report is positive for opioids. Meanwhile, confirmed deaths are those where a coroner or forensic pathologist determined that the death was drug toxicity with opioid involvement.

Last year, coroner's data found that Windsor-Essex had 128 confirmed and probable drug-related deaths. 

Health unit asking community to fill in the blanks

It's not really clear what is causing this sudden increase, though Nadalin says it could be due to a range of factors. For example, there could be a new substance on the market that is extremely potent or there are more toxic drugs being mixed into the current drug supply. 

Last Monday, Nadalin says WECOSS partners, including emergency services workers and treatment providers, got together to discuss possible short-term strategies to help. 

From this, Nadalin says one of the strategies they immediately implemented was adding in a section on the WECOSS website where people who overdosed, or experienced someone having an overdose, can share more details about what happened. 

People are asked to answer questions like the type of substances involved in the overdose, where the incident occurred, the type of symptoms experienced or whether naloxone was helpful in reversing the overdose. 

While anecdotal, Nadalin says "that's the type of information that can give our partners on the strategy, as well as the community at large, a better understanding of what's going on so that they can better protect themselves in these times of acute spikes."

Community wants answers on SafePoint

Meanwhile, local advocates are still pushing the government for answers on whether Windsor's drug consumption and treatment site (CTS), SafePoint, will ever reopen to the public. 

The site's application is still held up, pending the results of a province-wide review on CTS sites that was meant to assess the safety of these services following a shooting outside of one last year in Toronto. 

Moreland says the politics of this issue are getting in the way of an urgent response that could help save lives. 

"These are not just numbers, these are people that are dying and you need to put people before politics, because the idea of supporting people who use substances is not politically favourable because of the stigma that's out in the public," she said. 

And while she knows that drug consumption and treatment sites aren't going to solve the crisis, she believes they are another tool the region should be able to rely on. 

Lacie Krzemien, who has been working in addictions for the past decade and previously worked with harm reduction organization Pozitive Pathways, says she wants the government to be more "transparent" in releasing its findings from the review. 

"We all know we're in a crisis, this deserves an emergency response. So what we can do as a community is just keep the pressure on," said the 39-year-old, who says she has had more than 10 friends die from substance overdoses. 

"We want answers and we want them to understand that our brothers, mothers, sisters are continuing to overdose and die in our community." 

MPP says government has invested billions to help 

MPP Andrew Dowie wasn't available for an interview Friday, but told CBC News in an email that the government "is supporting the mental health and wellbeing of all Ontarians through the Roadmap to Wellness." He said this is a plan to "build a modern, world-class mental health and addictions system with funding of $3.8 billion over 10 years across Ontario." 

Since 2019, Dowie said the government has invested in a Mobile Crisis Response Team that is a partnership between Hotel Dieu Grace Healthcare, Windsor police and the Ontario Provincial Police. 

He added that the government recently gave $2 million to the Windsor branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association, which will support the expansion of their Community health Centre and their mobile clinic, which helps vulnerable residents. 

In response to specific questions about the CTS review, Dowie said based on overdose numbers reported by Windsor Regional Hospital between 2021 and 2024, including the 2023 calendar year that SafePoint was running, "its operations did not reduce the number of overdoses reported at Windsor Regional Hospital."

"CTS sites are expected to build trust in the communities where they are located through consultation and ongoing engagement," Dowie said via email. 

"Following the tragic incident last July at the Riverdale site in which an innocent young mother lost her life, and an employee of that site was arrested in conjunction with the shooting, the ministry launched a review of all sites.  The review will inform the next steps taken by the Ministry of Health."

Dowie says the hospital reported 740 overdoses in the fiscal year spanning 2021-22, 786 overdoses in the fiscal year 2022-23 and 794 overdoses in the fiscal year 2023-24, though this year is missing data because of the hospital's cyberattack. 

SafePoint did reverse five overdoses on site in the two months before the site closed. None of the overdoses were fatal.