On May 11, more than 100 local like-minded individuals and organizations joined together to raise awareness of the Opioid Overdose Crisis and to promote a new tool that is available in our community to help combat it.
Steve Pratt of the Chatham-Kent Drug Awareness Council said, “The concept behind the
campaign was simple. If you could help to save a life through one small act … would you do it?”.
In what is already being dubbed as the AIDS epidemic of this generation, the Opioid Overdose Crisis has already claimed the lives of thousands of Canadians with a death toll that continues to climb.
The drugs responsible for the majority of these overdoses, boot-legged fentanyl and
carfentanil, have been confirmed by police and health officials to be as close to home as the Waterloo region, Pratt said in a release.
Additionally, the Ontario Narcotics Atlas report recently released from the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care indicates that the Eire-St. Clair LHIN has more prescription opiates dispensed per capita than any other region in Ontario.
While we are not yet experiencing an opioid overdose crisis situation in our community, the communities that have are pleading with the rest of the country to take proactive action to help minimize the needless loss of life.
One prevention strategy in motion is the provision of free Naloxone/NARCAN kits through local pharmacies and sexual health clinics, which are now available in Chatham-Kent.
Naloxone/NARCAN is a life-saving drug capable of temporarily reversing an opiate/opioid overdose to buy time for EMS to arrive. A nasal spray NARCAN kit can be picked up from the CK Public Health Unit Sexual Health Clinic at the WISH Centre on King Street by walk-in, with no health card required.
The injectable Naloxone kits are available at 14 local participating pharmacies with a
valid health card. You can find a pharmacy near you by visiting ontario.ca/opioidoverdose.
For more information, citizens are encouraged to attend the Chatham-Kent Drug Awareness Council’s Annual General Meeting that is open to general public, being held at St. Andrew’s Residence, 99 Park St. in Chatham on May 26 at 10 a.m.
