Feds considering declaring opioid problem a public health emergency

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This article was published 19/11/2016 (3027 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA – The opioid problem in Canada is growing so quickly it is now claiming more lives in some parts of the country than traffic accidents, federal Health Minister Jane Philpott said Friday.

“There is no question this is a national public health crisis,” Philpott said, mid-way through the first day of a national conference on opioid addictions, such as fentanyl and carfentanil.

Both are opioid drugs made as strong pain relievers. Fentanyl is 100 times more potent than morphine. Carfentanil, used as a tranquilizer for large animals like elephants, is 100 times more potent again. Some of the use of fentanyl is through prescriptions given to patients for pain management, but more and more illicit versions of the drugs are being smuggled into Canada and then used to lace other drugs such as heroin and cocaine.

Many times drug addicts don’t even know what they’re ingesting, and in the case of both fentanyl and carefentanil, even tiny amounts, equivalent to a few grains of salt, can kill you. Three people in Winnipeg died this week in what police believe is a fentanyl-related overdose.

Philpott and Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins were hosting the two-day event in Ottawa, with the first day a series of sessions with health experts, policy makers and families and victims of opioid addiction to gather information and share experiences in an attempt to get a better understanding of the scope of the problem.

“During the course of this conference alone… probably six or seven Canadians will die from opioid overdose,” said Hoskins. “That will happen again tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. We have a tremendous responsibility as a country.”

Traffic fatalities used to be the number one cause of accidental death in Canada and the United States. That has changed as the opioid crisis has marched across American cities, with states such as Virginia, Ohio and Minnesota all reporting overdoses now the number one cause of accidental death.

The British Columbia Coroner’s Service said this week 622 deaths in that province were linked to opioids between January and the end of October of this year alone. Sixty per cent of them were fentanyl related. In all of 2015, B.C. saw 300 people die in traffic accidents.

British Columbia has been ground zero of the opioid problem in Canada. Alberta and Ontario and Saskatchewan are also seeing fast growing rates of overdoses. Manitoba didn’t really begin to notice a sharp uptick in overdose deaths and hospital admissions until last year, but the numbers are growing quickly.

In 2014 there were seven deaths in Manitoba linked to fentanyl. In 2015 that went up to about 18. On Thursday, the Chief Medical Examiner said there were nine confirmed cases of fentanyl-related deaths between January and May of this year, and another five related to carfentanil.

Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen has said a lack of good data on the size of the problem hampers an ability to respond. Manitoba acting chief provincial health officer Dr. Elise Weiss, who is attending the conference with Goertzen, told the Free Press Friday developing a better understanding of who is being affected the most can lead to far better programs.

She said it’s not clear from other provinces if one particular group is more at risk than others, noting experts from B.C. and Alberta said the problem seems to be affecting different age groups in different cities.

The conference wraps up Saturday with a summit among policy makers only – mainly health ministers and public health chiefs – to develop an action plan to roll out across the country. Canada has already approved naloxone, the drug antidote to opioids, as a non-prescription drug and approved the use of the nasal-spray form of it.

Philpott has also been asked to declare this a national public health emergency.

She said Friday her department is looking at what that entails and if it means her department can take actions they otherwise cannot take, it will be done.

“You can be assured, that any mechanism that is available to us to address this crisis, I will find a way to make sure I use those mechanisms. That we save lives.”

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca