Ottawa firefighters responding to more opioid overdoses

In addition tofire calls and traffic accidents, Ottawa firefighters are increasingly finding themselves on the front lines of the city's growing opioid crisis, especially downtown.

Between January and June 2023, Ottawa firefighters administered roughly 80 doses of the opioid medicationnaloxone, according to Ottawa Fire Services media relations officer Nicolas DeFazio.

As the crisis intensifies, firefighters have been trained to administer naloxoneto assist their paramedic counterparts.

It's been a helpful partnership, according to Ottawa Paramedic Service spokesperson Marc-Antoine Deschamps.

He said firefighters might also need to initiate other lifesaving measuressuch as CPR or ventilation.

In the first seven months of this year, paramedics administered naloxone to 314 people, comparedto 330 patients in all of 2022. Deschamps saidhe expects record numbers this year.

With paramedics responding to more than 1,100 opioid overdoses alone, the problem is most certainly on the rise, he said.

A problem for years

The opioid crisis has been growing for yearsand is tied to a number of socioeconomic factors.

One of itsroots is the way drugs such asmorphine, OxyContin and fentanylwere prescribed in the 1990s under the false belief they didn't lead to a high risk of addiction.

When howthey were prescribed and designed changed, people turned to street drugs, which can include extremely powerful opioidswhen users aren't expecting them.

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Naloxoneis a synthetic drug thatblocksopiatereceptorsin the brain, which can temporarily reverse an overdose.

Ottawa's problem isn't just confined to the ByWard Market, according to Deschamps.

Paramedics report overdoses throughout the city and in addition to tainted drugs, people are overdosing on counterfeit prescription drugs laced with fentanyl, he said.

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DeFazio said that means more resources are needed to fight the problem.

To try and get a handle on things, paramedics have starteddispensingnaloxone kits to people who might need them.

Deschampshimself recalls a Sunday on the job where a bystander had administered naloxone on someone.With no pharmacy nearby, he gave her a replacement kit so she wouldn't have to go find another one herself.

Radio-Canada asked Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffeto comment on the issue but he wasn't immediately available for an interview.

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