‘A death a day, basically:’ Saskatchewan’s overdose deaths hit nearly 300 for 2020

Saskatchewan’s death-by-overdose count is reaching totals that have never been seen before in our province.

“We’re having a death a day, basically,” Jason Mercredi, executive director of Prairie Harm Reduction, said Thursday.

“We had 60-plus deaths in a two-month span. The exponential growth curve on the amount of people dying is really disturbing.”

When looking at the numbers, which were recently released by a Saskatchewan Coroners Service report, 296 drug toxicity deaths have been confirmed or suspected from Jan. 1 to Oct. 26 in the province.

Of those, 122 deaths have been confirmed, while the remaining 174 are suspected by the Saskatchewan Coroners Service. Saskatchewan’s record was set in 2018, with 171.

Also included in the report were the areas in which the 122 confirmed deaths occurred. Regina led the way with 58, Saskatoon sits at 24, and five were recorded in each of Prince Albert and Yorkton.

Six Indigenous communities in Saskatchewan were also included, with two on the Gordon’s First Nation and Pasqua First Nation, along with one in each of the Little Black Bear First Nation, Mosquito First Nation, Sweetgrass First Nation and White Bear First Nation.

In total, confirmed drug toxicity deaths occurred in 30 communities in the province.

Saskatoon’s safe consumption site began its operations on Oct. 1. In Regina, Mercredi said a similar approach is needed.

“I’m getting calls from grandmothers in Regina that want to set up overdose prevention sites in a park. It’s pretty weird to be getting calls from church-going grandmothers, asking me what harm reduction supplies that they need so they can keep members of their community alive,” he said.

“People are desperate. We need an organization to step up in Regina. And if an organization doesn’t step up, then the community members are going to have to step up.”

The safe consumption site in Saskatoon opened under Prairie Harm Reduction’s community-based funding budget, with reduced hours running from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to Friday.

During the 2020 provincial election campaign, NDP Leader Ryan Meili said he would fund the site if elected. During the Oct. 14 provincial debate, Premier Scott Moe also had an answer for the potential funding.

“We would consider (funding the site) alongside all the other investments that we have made,” he said.

But Mercredi is still running the site under the tighter budget.

“The biggest complaint we get is they want us to expand our hours. We’re opening on limited hours right now because we could only open with the amount of money that we raised,” he explained.

“We can’t wait for budget cycles anymore to respond to this issue because that’s going to be another 150 people dead by the end of March, let alone by the time we get (the funds) from any of the budgetary decisions that are made in March.”

Mercredi said the site is averaging about 10 people per day during the first month of operation. He said with experts, the community, health leaders and now data supporting the safe consumption site, the current operations need to be funded.

“We know that we need to be open through the night … People need a place that they can go,” he said. “We need the government to step up and provide that support.”

Mercredi warned if these numbers continue, next year is going to be “much worse.”

“I shouldn’t have to sell T-shirts so that we can try to keep people alive,” he said. “Regina’s going to be a while before they’re going to be able to get a service like this implemented.

“When we say the situation is rapidly (falling) apart, we really do mean that. And the thing is, we can say that we didn’t anticipate this, but we announced the consumption site almost two years ago. So we anticipated this as an agency. We just wanted to be funded so we can hire the paramedics and the support staff to effectively work.”

Mercredi also added the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) needs to lead the way to work on the overdose crisis.

“They need to be way more transparent than they’re being. They hardly say anything on this file and the only time that they give a statement is when either ourselves (the media and Prairie Harm Reduction), the police service or the coroner’s report comes out,” he said.

“Naloxone expansion is great … but that’s not going to solve it. We really do need a way to get these people engaged in the continuum of care.”

The SHA hadn’t responded to 650 CKOM’s request for comment at the time of publication.