The company that offers emergency services in and around Saskatoon has released some more information regarding the cost of services when it comes to fighting the city’s drug crisis.
Medavie Health Services West said in its overdose response where life-saving treatment isn’t necessary, the average cost per call is in the $300 range.
In those calls, generally a pair of paramedics will attend in a single vehicle.
That jumps to between $700 and $800 when life-saving measures are needed.
The company’s public affairs director added in many of those calls, paramedics aren’t the only ones on the scene.
“Any cardiac arrest or respiratory arrest, you’ll see not only our two-team go, but you’ll also see our supervisor go. You’ll see fire and police also attend. So for one patient, we could have up to 16 responders on site,” Troy Davies told Global News.
Those dollar figures only account for Medavie’s budget and don’t include the cost for police officers and the fire department’s response.
First responders have been asked to attend more overdoses than in previous years.
In the first three months of the year, overdose calls generally made up between five and eight per cent of all Medavie calls.
However, that increased after pandemic safety measures were put in place.
“We’ve seen the scale rise dramatically and again, we’ve also seen our mental health calls, depression calls go up. So just in general, our typical responses have gone from 600 a week to 800 a week,” Davies added.
Between May 4 and Aug. 3, Medavie attended a steady increase of overdose calls generally making up between nine to 13 per cent of all responses.
That worked out for a total of 1,009 calls.
Even if all of those responses did not require life-saving measures, it would cost the ambulance service at least $300,000 based on the $300 average for service where life-saving measures aren’t necessary.
If that number of calls stays steady over a full year, the bill would equal around $1.2 million.
Saskatoon Fire Department has responded to more overdose calls as well.
Its chief said in the first three-quarters of the year, it responded to 340 overdose calls.
“What’s concerning is during (the) COVID-19 (pandemic) we saw certain types of calls diminish, for example motor vehicle collisions — not as many people out on the street. But through these last number of months, we’ve seen calls like overdoses, the mental health calls increase,” Chief Morgan Hackl said.
That compares to 222 over the same span in 2019, which is more than a 50 per cent increase.
However, Hackl added firefighters are only directed to overdose calls that meets a certain threshold based on information gathered by 9-1-1 operators.
Saskatoon Police Service said it also attends calls that meet a level of service where officers are required.
Medavie added that overdose calls include calls for anything that can be considered a drug, including alcohol intoxication.