Drug overdose deaths from multiple substances on rise in Ontario since start of pandemic: report – CBC

Trend found across Canada, U.S., with fentanyl increasingly involved, research shows

Sep 15, 2023

Just the other day, Dr. Marko Erak treated a patient in Toronto’s Humber River Hospital emergency room who had overdosed on carfentanil, an extremely toxic opioid.

Stronger drugs are a common theme that’s worrying doctors like Erak.

“The amount of resources taken to resuscitate certainly are higher,” he told CBC News outside of the ER earlier this week.

While the COVID-19 pandemic has subsided for now, Erak said, it left poor mental health and financial hardship in its wake. This, he suspects, is fuelling a “tsunami of overdoses.”

And the overdoses are becoming more complicated, as Erak said he finds that people end up having more than one drug in their system.

Drug overdose deaths from multiple substances on rise in Ontario since start of pandemic: report – CBC

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