As the numbers go, the opioid crisis in Greater Sudbury in 2023 was not as deadly as in previous years, but the crisis continues in the sense that on a per capita basis more people in Sudbury and other cities in Northern Ontario are struggling with addiction than in other parts of Ontario.
And people continue to die from drug poisoning (formerly overdose).
This is based on the Opioid Surveillance, which is a webpage published by the Community Drug Strategy in Sudbury, with regular updates on overdoses, emergency room visits and paramedics responses for people with addictions.
The community drug strategy organization is made up of Public Health Sudbury and Districts, Greater Sudbury Police Service, the City of Greater Sudbury and other social agencies.
The first warning of the year came in the second week of January when there were reports of an increase in the number of overdoses in Sudbury
"While we cannot confirm the substance(s) causing the overdoses, this situation serves as an important reminder to the community that street drugs may be cut or mixed with substances such as benzos (benzodiazepines), fentanyl, or carfentanil. Frontline workers warn that more toxic substances may be circulating locally," said the news release.
Barely a month had passed when the community drug strategy put out another warning. It was based on information from the coroner's office that an unusual substance had been detected in the body of at least one opioid overdose victim.
"The Community Drug Strategy for the City of Greater Sudbury has received confirmation that tranq/non-opioid ‘xylazine’ has been found locally in Sudbury and districts. A person may be exposed to xylazine when using other substances," said the warning on February 15.
Xylazine is a veterinary drug, a tranquilizer for animals.
It was one day later on Feb. 16 that the board of health approved a motion to urge the provincial government to provide operational funding for the supervised consumption site located at Energy Court, in an area behind the Lorne Street Beer Store. The site is operated by Réseau ACCESS Network. The motion was forwarded to Queen's Park.
It was at the June board of health meeting that a special presentation was made to the board by Sandra Laclé, acting director of PHSD, on the importance of addressing the issue.
Laclé quoted statistics of toxicity rates going back to 2018, comparing the Sudbury health jurisdiction with the rest of Ontario.
"Our rates are increasing faster, worsening as compared to Ontario or Canada as a whole. These rates of drug toxicity deaths are intensifying despite the community's best efforts. We do not know why the rates of death are high and worsening in our area, or what puts our population at greater risk of death from opioid use."
Laclé provided a detailed 11-page report — Addressing the Toxic Drug Crisis — and said Sudbury's Community Drug Strategy had first tabled the idea of having a local leadership summit to deal with the complex issue of the drug crisis in Sudbury. The board of health agreed with the idea and approved a motion to have the summit.
The summit was finally organized and held in early December in a community hall in Azilda with roughly 200 participants from Public Health Sudbury, city hall, education, police, medical professionals and several other social-welfare agencies.
Members of the news media were deliberately excluded from the event, in what was said to be an effort to respect the privacy of some individuals who would speak about lived experiences but did not want to be presented to the public.
The program for the summit described the event as "a forum for community leadership to examine the current magnitude of and response to the drug toxicity crisis in Greater Sudbury, with the goal of determining actionable next steps, processes, and structures to mitigate harms and ensure accountability."
One of the few speakers made available to the media was Mayor Paul Lefebvre who said it was important to recognize that for the first time all the key players, decision makers and policy advisors were together in the same room to talk about the opioid toxic drug crisis.
"So that's the first time we've ever had this type of summit, and ever to talk about opioids," said the mayor.
"What is going to come out of this is there's an action plan of even more collaboration between the organizations. So many of these organizations that are here have never met each other, right. All of a sudden, they're talking to each other, so it's so important to get together and to have that." said Lefebvre.
As an example of the need for action, Lefebvre said there are gaps in the continuum of care. He mentioned that so many people with addictions are brought to the hospital after overdosing on drugs or other substances.
"When somebody has been brought into the hospital because of an opioid crisis, when they leave, what supports are there, who's doing what, what is the hospital doing? What is the community doing?" Lefebvre asked.
Also providing comments at the end of the event was board chair Lapierre who said he believed the summit created a level of hope and optimism for finding new and better ways to resolve the crisis to find ways to reduce the overdose death rate. He said he was looking forward to getting the summit report in the New Year.
“How's this going to change how we do things? I guess it depends on how we have the report and what every agency that provides her reduction can take from that report to accentuate,” said Lapierre.
“Maybe there's places that we're doing very, very well. And other places that we are doing some stuff, but we need to implement better strategies to maximize it. So I'm looking forward to having that to see how we can improve to reduce the mortality rate overall.”
Len Gillis covers health care and mining for Sudbury.com.
