HN health unit develops opioid early warning surveillance system

Public health officials in Haldimand-Norfolk have developed an early warning surveillance system to monitor spikes in opioid overdoses.

The program provides Haldimand-Norfolk Health Unit staff with real-time information about opioid overdoses, which can then be shared with paramedics, police and others in the community.

“This monitoring allows the health unit to determine whether an alert is required based on daily opioid-overdose counts in the community,” Kike Ogunsulire, the health unit’s program manager, school health and substance, said in an e-mail response to questions from The Reformer. “If the rate of opioid overdoses reaches a pre-established threshold, then an early warning alert is issued.”

The early warning surveillance system was developed by health unit staff between 2019-2022 with the help of an $80,000 Public Health Agency of Canada grant. Now that the program is operational, health unit staff are working with the OPP, paramedics and hospitals to strengthen partnerships for the reporting of opioid overdoses.

The system also includes a dashboard, which is currently being reviewed by health unit staff. The dashboard will be available to the public to increase awareness about trends as well as available supports for opioid overdoses including the availability and administration of naloxone in the community.

The surveillance system will also help the health unit promote intervention strategies that will over time, help reduce deaths related to substance use.

By way of example, if there is a surge in overdoses related to marijuana being contaminated with an opioid such as fentanyl that information can be provided to the surveillance system. The information can then be shared with others in the community including those who use substances.

Work on the surveillance system began in 2019 in response to an increase in opioid overdoses.

Figures provided by the health unit show that between 2019 and 2021, the two counties had consistently higher rates of opioid-related emergency department visits compared to the rest of Ontario.

The rate of emergency department visits in Haldimand-Norfolk in 2021 was 23.1 per 100,000 population. The Ontario rate was 16.3 for the same time period.

Haldimand-Norfolk also had consistently a higher rate of hospitalization due to opioid overdose and a higher rate of opioid overdose related deaths compared to the rest of Ontario.

The rate of opioid related deaths in Haldimand-Norfolk in 2021 was 22.2 per 100,000 population. For the rest of Ontario, the rate was 19.4 per 100,000 population.

A report highlighting the early warning system was presented to the health and social services advisory committee just over a week ago and to the Haldimand-Norfolk Board of Health on Tuesday. Both the advisory committee and the board of health accepted the report as information.

Now that the demands of the COVID-19 pandemic have lessened, the health unit’s substance use team plans to prioritize all efforts to provide beneficial harm reduction services to the community. The team plans to resume regular harm reduction team meetings with others in the community to share information.

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