Lambton public health moves opioid data online

Monthly updates about opioid-related emergencies and deaths in Lambton are now available online.

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Public health launched its Lambton opioid dashboard July 15, replacing monthly emails from the health unit to local media and service providers.

“Just to make it a little more accessible to partners, other agencies, and to the public, so they can see those trends as well,” said Matt Butler, health promotion supervisor with the health unit.

Data points at lambtonpublichealth.ca/opioid-dashboard include opioid-related ambulance calls, emergency room visits, the number of overdose-reversing naloxone kits distributed, and deaths from powerful painkillers like fentanyl, linked to a global public health crisis.

The health unit has been sending email updates since around 2017, when Lambton started receiving provincial funding to create a Sarnia-Lambton drug and alcohol strategy — unveiled in 2023 — for naloxone kit distribution, and to increase opioid surveillance.

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Funding at the time was up to $150,000 a year for three years.

Public health officials weren’t able to immediately clarify Friday if the health unit is still receiving funding from the province specific to opioid surveillance.

The health unit gets funding based on its programs and follows Ontario Public Health standards, Butler said, noting those include a priority to respond to substance use and the opioid crisis.

“We are pretty actively working on the opioid crisis here, so it’s just sort of modernizing our approach,” he said about the new dashboard.

A review of public health’s services prompted the change, he said.

“It’s just utilizing more our technology and spreading the message,” he said.

There have been 10 opioid-related deaths, probable and confirmed, so far in 2024 in Sarnia-Lambton, based on data from Ontario’s chief coroner, the site says.

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That’s likely for the first three months of the year, although the site doesn’t specify.

There were eight deaths reported for the first two months of 2024, as per the last emailed update from public health in May.

There were 34 opioid-related deaths in Lambton in 2023, up from 32 in 2022, according to the site, with a note that data on deaths from the past two years is considered preliminary and may still change.

Lambton’s opioid-related death rate per 100,000 people continues to be above the provincial average.

The latest data on emergency department visits for opioid poisonings, or overdoses, is from September, 2023, when there were eight visits. Bluewater Health was hit with a cyberattack in October.

Of the 31 emergency medical services (EMS) calls for opioid overdoses in June, 2024, nine refused transport, the data shows.

In 2023, there were 220 calls, 240 in 2022, and about 300 in 2021.

About 25 to 27 per cent of calls a year refused transport, the data shows.

There were 4,200 naloxone kits distributed in 2023, and 5,700 in 2022, up from about 2,900 in 2021, the site says.

So far, in 2024, there have been about 2,600 kits distributed.

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