Collins Bay Institution in Kingston has seen 11 inmate drug overdoses since mid-April, with the most recent overdose ending in a fatality.
Last Thursday evening, 50-year-old inmate Jeffery Glen Kellar died at the prison, the first inmate death to result from the drug overdoses.
Officers found Kellar unresponsive in his cell. They tried using naloxone, a nasal spray often used to counteract fentanyl overdoses.
Kyle Lawlor, media relations officer with Corrections Canada says, “It was not successful, so we did chest compressions until paramedics arrived. They continued chest compressions until he reached the hospital where he died.”
Since April 13, Collins Bay Institution has seen an increase in similar overdoses that has alarmed corrections officials.
Lawlor could not confirm whether the overdoses were due to fentanyl, a volatile drug at the centre of the opioid crisis.
Nervertheless, the frequency of the overdoses is making alarm bells go off at the correctional facility.
“This is a significant number of overdoses that we would consider this a health and safety risk for the institutions,” says Lawlor.
The institution has ion scanners at their front desk, dogs that can sniff drugs and officers that do strict inspections. Yet drugs are still finding their way into the institution.
“They come in through our visitors, they also come in when inmates transfer from one institution to another. We can have throw-overs, people come up to the wall and throw it over,” Lawlor says.
Officers have doubled patrols around the institution, increased wellness checks and intensified inmate education about the dangers of drugs like these, which often contain fentanyl.
The hope is that with better education and more security, they can better protect inmates from what has become an epidemic.