Overdose calls to paramedics are climbing sharply in several Ontario cities, including Toronto, according to a new CBC investigation. The broadcaster's own analysis of the data found that in the first five months of this year, non-fatal opioid overdose calls rose by almost 115%, a striking jump that has alarmed health workers and advocates across the province.
The trend is not confined to a single city. According to the CBC investigation, led by reporter Clara Pisica, the increase in overdose calls is being seen in multiple cities across Ontario, pointing to a province-wide surge rather than a purely local spike, with Toronto among the places where paramedics are being called out more often.
What is driving the rise is not settled. CBC cautioned that the data it obtained cannot, on its own, attribute a cause. But many of the researchers, healthcare professionals and advocates the broadcaster spoke to pointed to two factors in particular: an increasingly toxic and unpredictable drug supply, and the closure of provincially funded safe consumption sites.
For front-line medical staff, those closures have changed the question of who is responsible for spotting an overdose. An emergency room physician told CBC that with the sites gone, people everywhere now need to be on the lookout, arguing that the burden has effectively shifted onto the wider community. Everyone, the doctor said, from the person working the counter at a coffee shop to a worker at the local library, has in a sense become an overdose prevention worker.
Some supervised options do remain for those who need them. The physician noted that three privately funded sites are still operating in the city and open to the public: Street Health, the Kensington Market Overdose Prevention Site and Casey House, which continue to offer a space even after the provincially funded facilities were shut down.
The findings are likely to sharpen an already heated debate over Ontario's approach to drug use and harm reduction. With overdose calls climbing and the provincially funded sites now closed, the CBC analysis has added weight to the warnings of the health workers and advocates who see the loss of those facilities, alongside the toxic drug supply, as a driver of the crisis unfolding on the province's streets.