Thunder Bay tops Ontario's opioid death rates for another year
According to new data by the Office of the Chief Coroner for Ontario, the region had 80 opioid overdose deaths in 2024.
That statistic puts Thunder Bay at the highest per-capita rate in Ontario, at 69.14 deaths per 100,000 people — with Sault Ste. Marie just behind, recording 38 deaths last year and Timmins with 18.
Ontario's Chief Coroner, Dr. Dirk Huyer, noted that while his office does not formally track the underlying causes behind the region's high incidence of opioid-related deaths, he says a myriad of reasons could drive that number.
"It could be the unrelated drug supply… we don't know the supply per say, but it could be that there are challenges that people are facing that are different in the Thunder Bay area than other locations," he said.
Kandace Belanger, manager of harm reduction and street outreach at the Thunder Bay District Health Unit, said the answer behind that number is multifaceted, but could come down to a few reasons.
"We certainly understand that there are high rates of people experiencing addictions and mental health concerns," she said. "I think we have people who experience high rates of trauma and intergenerational trauma — which all sort of intersect."
According to the Ontario Drug Policy Research Network (ODPRN), 2024 saw an average of 186 opioid toxicity deaths per month.
Thunder Bay has consistently reported some of the highest opioid-related mortality rates in Ontario over recent years: the previous year in 2023, Public Health Ontario reported 77 opioid-related deaths in Thunder Bay, maintaining its position as the region with the highest per capita opioid mortality rate in Ontario.
Keeping those recurring stats in mind, Belanger said it's not about doing anything differently, but having more of an emphasis on continued work.
"I think the messaging is that our role is really, in the whole continuum of substance use… around the harm reduction aspect of things," she said.
Ongoing efforts
To build on previous work and to help prevent future deaths, Belanger says the health unit continues to take several important steps.
One is providing naloxone — a medication that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose — to individuals or families that may have loved ones using opioids.
Belanger also says the health unit provides training so people understand what overdoses look like and how to respond to them, and also speak with people at risk of overdosing to not use alone.
"There are some local supports and services, one of them is the Lifeguard Digital Health app," she said. "One of the biggest features is it has a built-in timer, where if someone is using alone, they can enter their information and location and if they don't respond to the timer within a specific amount of time, then EMS can automatically be dispatched to their location."
Belanger said a big loss for Thunder Bay was seeing the closure of its only safe consumption site, Path 525.
Ontario previously banned the use of supervised drug consumption sites within 200 meters of schools and child-care centres, with 10 facilities across the province seeing closures by March of this year.
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