(Dreamstime)

By David Opinko

16 drug overdose deaths reported in Lethbridge in Q1 2021

Jun 11, 2021 | 1:38 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – Per capita, Lethbridge continues to have a much higher rate of drug overdose deaths than the rest of Alberta.

Alberta Health Services’ (AHS) Substance Use Surveillance Report has been updated to include data from the first quarter of this year.

Across the province, they say 369 people died as a result of overdosing on illegal substances. That includes 123 in March alone for a rate of 32.7 deaths per 100,000 persons.

The rate in Lethbridge was more than double that at 83.9 deaths per 100,000 persons in March.

There were five overdose fatalities in the city in January, four in February, and seven in March.

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Despite the higher numbers in Lethbridge, the South Zone as a whole was more in line with the provincial trends.

For the entire region, 138 people lost their lives due to drug use in the first quarter of this year. The rate per 100,000 persons was 32.8.

Men are disproportionately impacted as three-quarters of all drug overdose deaths in Alberta happened to men. Men aged 35-39 were the most affected.

In Lethbridge, opioid-related events required 71 responses from EMS in the first three months of 2021.

In that time, 599 Naloxone kits were given out in the South Zone, a method of essentially reversing an overdose.

The mobile Overdose Prevention Site continues to operate just outside of Lethbridge’s homeless shelter. In the first quarter, it was visited 10,327 times.

That number is quite small compared to when the now-former Supervised Consumption Site was in operation. A typical quarter would see anywhere from 50,000-66,000 visits.