THUNDER BAY — A 67 per cent increase in the number of patients coming in with opioid overdoses failed to catch staff at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre by surprise.
"We've seen an increase. It's been gradual over the past year. At this time last year we were seeing roughly nine cases a month...now we're seeing about 15 per month," said Tyler Van Ramshorst, the acting manager in the Emergency Department.
The hospital had anticipated this, and had put procedures in place to deal with it.
"We'd seen it on the national radar as a concern. We realize that in our community we do have the potential to see this escalate," Van Ramshorst said, noting that TBRHSC carefully tracks the incidence of opioid cases to stay on top of the situation, in consultation with other agencies in the community.
Hospital staff, he said, have been nothing but supportive of the effort to make sure all patients are treated expeditiously.
"They have been incredibly engaged, and very interested in participating in any kind of educational opportunities they are presented with."
One of the processes the hospital has implemented to handle overdose cases is a medical directive that gives nurses the authority to administer naloxone, a medication that reverses the effects of an overdose.
"That is new for us. It's something that's enabled our staff to be able to react faster," Van Ramshorst said, "without a physician seeing the patient, as long as the patient meets the strict criteria."
Fully one-half the suspected opioid overdose cases arriving in the ED require admission to the hospital.
The majority of those end up in the Intensive Care Unit because of the requirement for close monitoring of the patients' condition.
Van Ramshorst said "the whole team is ready to anticipate and react in any situation that comes in...we want to make sure that we're always prepared for anything that might hit our doors."
He said he's proud of the ED staff for showing "a lot of initiative in order to give the patients the care they need."
