The Renfrew County and District Drug Strategy is reporting signs of hope in the fight against drug overdose.
They say from July 1 of last year to June 30 of this year, the county saw a 39 per cent decrease in suspect drug-toxicity deaths, and a 51 per cent decrease in opioid-overdose visits to the ER, compared to the same time period the year before.
The co-chair of the drug strategy steering committee, Dr. Jason Morgenstern, says the drug strategy is aimed at reducing harm from drug use under four pillars, which include harm reduction, treatment, prevention and community safety.
He says he thinks the reduction is due to the coordinated efforts of all the people working under the strategy.
So far in 2025, the public health nurse outreach team has had 1,300 interactions, provided almost 700 naloxone kits and trained over 200 people on how to administer naloxone.
Morgenstern noted the signs are promising, but a cause for cautious optimism.
“The reason why I’d like to remain cautious is, we do have a relatively small population, and so there can be fluctuations year-to-year in these numbers, and so I don’t want to over-read into the numbers. However, it’s very promising,” he said.
“The other point to consider is that Ontario as a whole has also seen a reduction in drug-related deaths. They’ve had about a 23 per cent reduction over the same time period.”
He added that the team working under the drug strategy needs to stay vigilant.
“It’s still important to note that any drug-related death in our community is one too many, and we still did have 19 drug-related deaths over the last twelve-month period that we have information on. And so we still need to keep that momentum going and keep working hard to see continued progress,” he said.
Morgenstern said the Mesa Initiative is having a big impact on the ground as well.
“It’s multifaceted. It involves looking at housing, as well as social services and medical services provided by their paramedic teams. A key component of it is it’s outreach and it’s mobile,” he said.
“So the Mesa team members are going out into the community, finding people who may be at high risk of drug-related harms, and providing them and connecting them with many different services, ranging from medical to social services to housing services wherever possible. And trying to provide those supports to get them into a situation where they are at reduced risk for drug overdose.”
Morgenstern says one practical step people can take is to pick up a free naloxone kit from a pharmacy or from the Renfrew County and District Health Unit.
Anyone who picks up a kit will receive training on how to respond to an overdose.
