Drug poisoning hospitalization rates in Kawartha Lakes higher than provincial average

Presentation to council paints bleak picture of local and national opioid use

A drug poisoning crisis driven by unregulated, synthetic opioids are posing significant health challenges to local residents.

Kate Hall, Vidya Sunil and Julie Elliot from the Haliburton Kawartha Northumberland Peterborough Board of Health (HKNPBH) provided council with their yearly update on the drug situation in the area.

Hall, a health promoter working on the HKNPBH Drug Strategy, was forthright in her assessment of the current reality facing the health unit.

“We are facing a drug poisoning crisis,” Hall said. “It is a complex health issue fuelled by unregulated synthetically produced opioids. It is complicated by the contamination (of opioids) with other substances resulting in impacts on the people who use drugs, their families, friends and communities.”

Sunil, an epidemiologist working for HKNPBH, provided council with the most up-to-date data the unit has on this drug poisoning crisis, and most of it was very concerning.

Using Health Canada data for the first six months of 2024, Sunil said that 84 per cent of all opioid deaths in Canada occur in only three jurisdictions: British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario. Sunil added that 72 per cent of those who die are male, and they are typically between 30-39 years of age.

For these individuals, the drug of choice is a dangerous combination of fentanyl, stimulants and non-pharmaceutically obtained opioids.

Sunil then focused specifically on her catchment area, providing statistics for Northumberland, Kawartha Lakes and Haliburton for 2023.

The first number Sunil provided looked at emergency room visits in Kawartha Lakes from those experiencing drug related distress. In 2023, there were 165 visits per 100,000 in population in Kawartha Lakes, or 1.6 times the Ontario average.

Of those who attended emergency departments in Kawartha Lakes in 2023, 34 people per 100,000 in population required hospitalization. This is 1.3 times greater than the provincial average. The death rates for these individuals are also a cause for concern with 22 per 100,000 succumbing to their addiction.

Sunil told council that in 2023, 54 per cent of the HKNPHC emergency room visits for opioids were in Kawartha Lakes, 77 per cent of the hospitalizations were in Kawartha Lakes and 67 per cent of the deaths across HKNPHC were in Kawartha Lakes.

“Over a five-year time period, 205 people have died from opioid related deaths (across HKNPHC),” Sunil said, “with fentanyl present in 86 per cent of all deaths in 2023.”

Councillor Dan Joyce, with an extensive healthcare policy background, had several questions for the presenters. Joyce began by wanting to know why drug-related deathrates are dropping in Northumberland and Haliburton, but not Kawartha Lakes.

Sunil said there are no clear answers except perhaps easier access to drugs from Peterborough and Durham Region simply because of the realities of geography.

Julie Elliot, chair of the HKNPHC Drug Strategy, suggested that rural isolation, where users might be using drugs alone, leads to much higher risks for those individuals especially if they overdose.

Joyce then asked for more information regarding the prescribing of legal opioids, wondering if this is how many individuals who use opioids get started.

“We don’t have those numbers,” Hall said. “But it is certainly possible that once a doctor says no, people will go to the street looking for drugs. Males of a certain age in the trades are an issue (this way).”

Deputy Mayor Charlie McDonald asked if there is data on recovery, and wondered what recovery rates were for those dealing with addiction.

Sunil promised as soon as data becomes available council will be provided it.

Elliot told McDonald that as a former drug user she is one of the “success stories.”

Councillor Ron Ashmore asked if the real problem regarding drugs is the unfettered smuggling of the raw materials needed to make these synthetic drugs across the border from the United States, and if so, what could be done to remediate this.

Hall agreed with some of what Ashmore said, pointing out that unfortunately some of these raw materials are legal products and the ingredients for other perfectly legal substances.

“It is up to the federal government and border control,” Hall said, “and once manufactured, local police.”

Councillor Pat Warren wanted to know what initiatives the health unit has implemented to reduce harm, and how they are being funded.

“We are expanding harm reduction with drug testing strips and wound care,” Hall said. “We have mobile outreach services. We go to where the people are, particularly those who do not have transportation.”

Hall said a primary goal of all their programming is to reduce risk of harm and death.

Elliot added that the health unit is doing outreach at local colleges, talking to paramedics and police officers in training, hoping to reduce the stigma around addiction and those who struggle with addiction.