Prairie Harm Reduction executive director remains hopeful for new year amid continued overdose crisis

As Saskatchewan continues to grapple with an overdose crisis, front-line organizations like Prairie Harm Reduction (PHR) in Saskatoon are looking at a new year of rising demand for services and navigating significant funding challenges.

According to the Saskatchewan Coroners Service, hundreds of people died from confirmed or suspected drug-related deaths in 2024. 

While the reports say deaths have gone down slightly compared to last year, fentanyl and related opioids are still leading to many tragedies. 

"Unfortunately it's become a pretty regular thing for people to be reversing overdoses on the streets," said Kayla DeMong, executive director at PHR.

In addition to providing harm reduction support, PHR distributes thousands of kits containing naloxone, a medication used to reverse or reduce the effects of opioids, during the year.

"Everyone should be carrying it," DeMong said.

The provincial government announced this year it would stop providing harm-reduction materials like pipes for illicit drug use to third-party organizations.

PHR runs Saskatchewan's first-ever safe consumption site, but receives no provincial funding for the site, even as demand for its services grow.

"It is a lot of anxiety not being able to predict income for the safe consumption site," said DeMong.

PHR had to adjust staffing hours to accommodate the increasing number of users.

"We needed enough staff on during the day to accommodate that, and that meant cutting our evening supports, which has been very difficult," Demong said.

As 2025 approaches, DeMong said the organization is relying heavily on community support, including donations.

"We continue to see good sales of our merchandise line, lots of donations coming in, and many people writing letters about why they support our services and how important they are."

Naloxone knowledge spreading  

Over the past year PHR significantly expanded its naloxone outreach efforts, training hundreds of people to recognize overdoses and respond with naloxone.

She estimates that the organization distributed close to 1,300 naloxone kits in 2024.

"We're seeing a lot more desire from the public — from different places — wanting training to ensure their staff know what to do and feel confident in identifying and responding to an overdose," she said.

"This year we saw retail spaces that wanted the training, a lot more organizations who don't directly support people who use substances asking for training."

Troy Davies, director of public affairs at Medavie Health Services West, said the increase in public awareness is having an impact.

"[There's been] a decrease in the amount of times that we've had to give [naloxone] because it's been administered prior to us arriving," he said.

Davies said his team typically hands out 35 to 40 kits a day, but believes this number is decreasing because of the work organizations like PHR are doing.

"They're out there in the trenches basically handing out [naloxone] kits, educating them on how to use them and basically showing them how to use them when the time is appropriate to do so," Davies said.

He estimates that his team distributed half as many kits as last year and expects the trend to continue into 2025.

DeMong remains optimistic, despite the ongoing challenges.

"I'm most excited about just the level of partnership that we are seeing in the community and organizations really wanting to work together to pool resources and create programs that will best serve the people in our community that need them," DeMong said.