There were 4,359 deaths related to drug poisoning in England and Wales in 2018, the highest number and the highest annual increase (16%) since the time series began in 1993. Since the ONS released the drug related death statistics on the 15th August, we have seen responses from the sector attempting to explain this continued growth in drug related deaths, and the measures that can be taken to reverse this trend.
The lives of 17 people have been saved in East Ayrshire after their families or friends gave them an emergency injection. The victims had overdosed on heroin or another opioid in 2018 before they were rescued from the grip of death by drug Naloxone.
The Food and Drug Administration claims that making naloxone an over-the-counter product would be “an important public health advancement,” according to its Prescription Opioid and Heroin Epidemic Awareness Week statement on Sept. 20.
Last year, the Public Health Agency of Canada says that 4,460 Canadians died from an opioid overdose. The vast majority of the deaths were accidental. A new and controversial Canadian guideline for front-line health-care workers was published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. Experts are hoping the guideline will help to stem the tide.
The staff at Barod work hard to prevent deaths. They hand out naloxone kits, which can save people who have had overdoses by kickstarting their breathing, and run a needle exchange from their premises close to the city centre. They also do outreach work with particularly vulnerable groups such as homeless people and sex workers. “We’re getting much better at providing services but we still can’t save enough lives,” said its chief executive, Caroline Phipps.
In Ontario, a Canadian province with large rural regions, one pharmacist is no longer waiting for patients to come to his pharmacy. Instead, Jason Newman is going straight to the communities that most need access to naloxone, the lifesaving opioid overdose reversal medication. But as a result of conducting his grassroots harm reduction efforts, he is facing institutional blow-back—and may now even be stripped of his approval to be a pharmacist.
