Surge in fentanyl-related deaths in Peel adds urgency to calls for public health funding

Since that time, Peel has evolved into one of the deadliest regions for fentanyl-related deaths in Ontario, with Peel Public Health recording 58 overdoses involving the drug in 2017, behind only Waterloo, with 67 deaths, and Toronto, with 218. The Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit also recorded 58 overdoses involving fentanyl that year. 

“The landscape has changed so much, so quickly,” according to advance practice clinical leader Maria Zhang, with the Centre of Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). In a press release, she cites “the advent of clandestine labs that manufacture very potent drugs that seem to come out of nowhere. The competition between dealers and suppliers to produce the next best thing puts everyone at risk.”

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Ten years. That’s all it took for fentanyl to go from a potent painkiller used to manage only the most serious post-surgery pain to one of the most deadly street drugs in the country. 

In Peel, opioid-related deaths involving fentanyl have skyrocketed, leaving the Region of Peel and community organizations struggling to tamp down the problem —  a task made even more difficult by the region’s underfunded public health budget.

Published in The Pointer - Brampton and The Pointer - Mississauga on September 14, 2019