THUNDER BAY — New data from NorWest Community Health Centres reflects Thunder Bay's growing mortality rate from opioid poisonings, but also shows the value of prevention services.
The Thunder Bay district had the highest opioid-related death rate in Ontario last year.
NorWest operates Path 525, an overdose prevention service and the city's only safe consumption site, out of its Simpson Street headquarters.
So far this year, it has helped to saved the lives of 117 people by reversing overdoses through the administration of Naloxone, a significant jump from previous years.
In an interview Thursday, director of health services Jennifer Lawrance offered two perspectives on this.
"It's wonderful that Path 525 is able to save 117 lives," she said. "On the other hand, that's an exceptional increase. So we are seeing a lot more overdoses that require intervention from the team within Path, which would be consistent with the data in the rest of the city. We're seeing a lot more overdoses in general, and more deaths by overdose."
By comparison, the total number of overdose reversals Path 525 facilitated in all of 2021 was 90, while the figure was 51 in 2020 and only eight in 2019.
Lawrance emphasized that these statistics do not include the reversals done by other outreach services, paramedics, individual community members, or at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre.
The notable increase in cases has occurred despite the fact the number of clients using Path 525 services has remained rather stable in recent years.
Lawrance said this is an indicator of the growing prevalence of contaminated drugs in the community.
It's why NorWest obtained new Canadian-made equipment this year that requires a very small sample for users to test their drugs at Path 525.
"It's not just telling you whether there's something in it or not. For example, someone tested what they thought was cocaine, and there was zero per cent cocaine in it. There was a ton of crystal meth and fentanyl in it. That's a huge difference, and that could be lethal," Lawrance said.
She described Path 525 as just one of a continuum of essential services to help maintain the overall well-being of the community, and to connect people to services they otherwise wouldn't have access to.
These include access to other health care professionals and a route to primary care for addressing their other urgent healthcare needs, as well as help getting I.D., a bank account set up, or navigating the judicial system.
Lawrence said that by coming to Path 525, "people are saying 'I don't want to die by overdose. Drug use is a part of my life, but I don't want it to end my life.' "
One big challenge, though, is that research has shown people won't generally travel more than 2.5 kilometres to access safe consumption sites.
NorWest Community Health Centres aims to establish a site on the north side of Thunder Bay, but government funding for additional locations currently is not available.
