Provincial data shows Alberta recently had its lowest monthly opioid death total since April 2020.
According to its Substance Use Surveillance Report, 90 people died from opioid-related causes this April.
In April 2020, there were 80 deaths.
“It is always good to see numbers going down,” said Petra Schulz, co-founder of Moms Stop the Harm.
Schulz does have concerns these figures could be a one-off because of a less toxic drug supply and not part of a long-term trend.
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She’s also worried delays at the medical examiner’s office could be affecting the data.
“I’m not confident the numbers we are seeing are really the true numbers,” Schulz said.
The province’s annual justice report shows just three per cent of medical examiner cases were finished within 60 days. The target is to have 20 per cent of cases completed in that time.
“The backlog at the (Office of the Chief Medical Examiner) does not impact the validity of the data published on the Alberta Substance Use Surveillance System,” Ministry of Mental Health and Addiction press secretary Hunter Baril told Global News in a statement.
“When a case is received by OCME, preliminary toxicology analysis will be performed. This provides a preliminary cause of death, which allows (the system) to provide the most comprehensive, transparent, and valid data across the country.”
Last year, the province set an annual high with 1,867 opioid-related deaths.
Through the first four months of this year, 452 people died.
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