The opioid crisis continues to rear its ugly head in Waterloo region.
On Monday, Waterloo Regional Police announced that officers had responded to 75 calls for opioid overdoses in January and that 10 of those calls were fatal.
READ MORE: Waterloo officers administered naloxone 35 times in 2018
Police made the announcement on Twitter where they noted that both numbers are records within the region.
“We recognize that this is a public health crisis and that it’s obviously not going away,” Const. Ashley Dietrich said.
“We have dedicated teams of officers within the drugs and firearms unit that primarily focus on drug-trafficking investigations and other investigations based upon prioritized community concerns and complaints,” she explained, noting that the unit seized over a kilogram of fentanyl and over 500 grams of carfentanil.
She says police are reminding fentanyl users to remember the Good Samaritan’s Act so if they are using and if there friend goes into a crisis to call emergency services and to have naloxone available.
This news comes after it appeared the number of people who were dying at the hands of opioids had appeared to have slowed although the number of calls had not.
According to numbers from Waterloo Region Integrated Drug Strategy (WRIDS), there were also 50 confirmed overdose-related deaths as of Jan. 2, a number which has decreased from 85 a year earlier.
READ MORE: Opioid-related deaths decline in Waterloo region in 2018 but overdose numbers continue to climb
Rob Crossan, deputy chief of paramedic services for the Region of Waterloo, recently told Global News that there were 200 opioid-related overdose calls in 2015, 400 calls in 2016 and 804 calls in 2017.
According to the numbers from WRIDS, that number reached 843 in 2018.
WATCH: Six suspected opioid deaths in Peterborough in first three weeks of 2019
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