Hamilton police won't send naloxone out with frontline officers
Hamilton Police Service won't send lifesaving anti-overdose kits out with frontline officers, even as the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police has asked the province for funding to do exactly that.
"Our strategy is not to get into the business of Narcan (naloxone) distribution," said Chief Eric Girt at a meeting of the Hamilton police services board.
"This is a medical crisis, in my view. Our role is to make sure that that person gets the medical help with those people who have that skill set," he said. "Because, quite frankly, I don't know what they've ingested."
Girt said in Hamilton, EMS paramedics are on scene nearly simultaneously to police, and they're "better equipped to discern what the nature of the medical response is."
"We don't want to see people killed as the result of consumption of drugs," Girt said. "My fundamental concern is that people get the help they need."
When injected into a person who is overdosing on prescription opioids, including morphine, heroin, or fentanyl, the naloxone can reverse the effects for about 10 minutes – long enough to get the victim to an emergency room.
Overdose is currently the third-leading cause of accidental death in Ontario, with one death by overdose every 13 hours. In Hamilton, city leaders are attempting to get out in front of a problem that is killing people across the country at staggering rates.
Locally, there have been six opioid-related 9-1-1 calls since the beginning of March. Preliminary coroner's numbers suggest there were 37 deaths resulting from opioid overdose, and another 10 due to opioid and alcohol toxicity combined. That's the highest death toll in 11 years of tracking.
'This is disturbing'
Girt said the service is going after the people distributing the drugs.
"We have people distributing substances that are killing people – that to me is a criminal offence," he said.
Girt told the board that officers have responded to calls of multiple overdoses in the same day.
"We've had occasions where people have overdosed, received Narcan, in the same day, overdosed again and received Narcan again," he said.
He said it has even sometimes seemed like a game to more than one person the service has encountered.
"And one of the comments from the users was, and this is disturbing, 'Boy, what a rush that was, coming back after the Narcan,'" Girt said.
"This was intentional. The two overdoses and the (naloxone)," he said. "The intent is ascribed by virtue of the comment that they made: 'Wow, what a rush.' It's disturbing."
Girt said he thinks officers may be open to liability by providing naloxone in a situation like that.
"I don't know about you; I value my life. I think they do too. But to get a high or a rush after getting Narcan after you've overdosed, we're not in that business."