Overdose spike, pandemic producing ‘creative responses’ from Guelph outreach workers

Guelph’s outreach organizations have come up with some creative ideas in response to a spike in drug overdoses amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

There were at least 17 overdoses in the city, including one fatality, to begin the month of May and that was on top of two deaths and five other overdoses at the end of April.

Officials say that’s only the ones they know about because overdoses are usually underreported.

“Really what we’re doing as a team of community service organizations is mobilizing together to really look creatively at this new environment under the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Raechelle Devereaux, executive director of the Guelph Community Health Centre

“Looking at how we can creatively intervene in more effective ways and recognizing that the two public health crises that we’re facing actually really negatively interfere with each other.”

The pandemic has caused a number of challenges when it comes to substance use, such as self-isolation rules conflicting with advice that drug users should never use alone.

Devereaux said while self-isolating and staying home is important to stopping the spread of the coronavirus, it has left drug users without protection in the form of company and peer-monitoring.

She also added that naloxone, a drug that can reverse the effects of an overdose, can not be self-administered.

Another issue is with the safe consumption site in the Guelph Community Health Centre.

It has recently received approval to move into the facility’s basement where there is more space, which can allow people who are showing symptoms of the virus to safely use substances in an isolated way.

Devereaux said they only have two spaces, but are awaiting construction work to increase that to four.

But the wait to use the site has been a struggle for some.

“When we know somebody who is about to use substances is in acute withdrawal and struggling to really just make it to their next minute, waiting to get access to the site doesn’t really work out that well and so we’re really trying to reduce that barrier,” she said.

The pandemic is also having an impact on the drug supply as there could be different ingredients that could make drugs more powerful.

Devereaux said people are also changing drugs if they are not able to get what they prefer, which could lead overdoses.

1:52 Working to protect Montreal’s most vulnerable population amid coronavirus outbreak

Devereaux said a meeting was held Friday with the Wellington Guelph Drug Strategy to come up with new ways to respond to substance use.

Ideas that were mentioned included having teams consisting of nurses and peer outreach workers go into the hotel where the city’s homeless population has been moved following the closure of several shelters due to the pandemic.

Devereaux said these teams would be doing direct, personal coaching and mentoring on how to respond to an overdose during the pandemic, providing information on how to protect themselves and harm reduction strategies, decreasing the stigma and providing naloxone.

This strategy could also be done in other congregate settings, such as some of Guelph’s vulnerable apartment buildings.

But the outreach has to go beyond the city’s most vulnerable, Devereaux said.

“The overdoses that we have seen are across the community, they are not just segmented to one demographic of people,” she explained.

That outreach could include adding information and a naloxone kit to food distribution packages that are being delivered.

5:16 Naloxone kits and how to use them

“If you don’t need it, great. But if you do need it now you have it,” Devereaux said.

It could also see parent outreach workers and neighbourhood support workers deliver some of that key messaging as well when it comes to substance use.

“It’s like taking key messages and making sure they are adapted for different populations and the outreach strategy is deployed through different arms, but the message is getting out to all of us,” Devereaux said.