Halifax Fire Chief Jason Viveiros says that his department responded to ten calls for overdose-related emergencies in a recent 12-day span. The spike is part of a two-year trend showing a marked increase in the frequency of overdose calls, he says.
Of these ten recent calls, two were for accidental overdoses of prescription medications. The rest were for overdoses of illicit drugs. Four calls were on Monday, April 25 alone, in a less than a four-hour period.
The patients ranged in age from 24-65.
Viveiros also noted that emergency responders were seeing the same patients with increased frequency.
Noting a lack of resources to help people struggling with addiction, he said that some people have addiction issues and their families don’t have the financial resources to get appropriate treatment, which may be one of the causes of those who repeatedly overdose.