‘People are dying everywhere’: Hamilton opioid hotline goes national
In a normal year, Rebecca Morris-Miller loses five to six people she personally knows to drug overdoses.
This year, she knows 15.
And that's just me personally," says Morris-Miller, founder of Grenfell Ministries. People are dying. People are dying everywhere."
Morris-Miller's faith-based agency runs peer support and outreach groups in Hamilton.
In February, it launched a 24-hour hotline that aims to prevent overdose deaths across Ontario.
The goal of the volunteer-powered line, which Morris-Miller thought up in a prison cell in 2018, was always clear: save as many lives as possible, wherever possible.
She is now one step closer to that.
This month, Grenfell Ministries partnered with Brave Technology Co-op - a software company that operates in Vancouver and Columbus, Ohio - to open a Canada-wide, around-the-clock overdose prevention line.
Dubbed the National Overdose Response Service (NORS), the line connects anyone who is alone and using a potentially deadly substance with peers who can quickly call for help if things take a turn for the worse.
Morris-Miller likened it to a lifeline: a steady voice on the other end who is easy and quick to reach, and free of judgment.
Most of us have been there before and know what it's like," she says.
Callers with or without data or Wi-Fi can dial a toll-free number (1-888-688-6677) and have someone stand by if needed. One of about 20 volunteers periodically checks in and calls 911 when there is no response.
In its first week, NORS received 54 calls ranging from B.C. to P.E.I.
The hotline comes at a critical point in an opioid crisis that Morris-Miller says is worsening by the day.
The COVID-19 pandemic has sidelined various outreach support programs and safe consumption sites, not to mention a wave of new street drugs that have proven both volatile and dangerous.
In Hamilton, paramedics responded to 49 and 47 suspected opioid overdose calls in July and August, far higher than the 19 and 28 calls received over the same period in 2019.
Last year, Hamilton lost 104 people to overdoses, 124 in 2018 and 88 in 2017.
We're seeing opioids cut with household substances, increasing the probability of overdose. We're seeing fentanyl cut with benzos (benzodiazepines), which doesn't react to naloxone kits," says Kim Ritchie, executive director of Grenfell who helped Morris-Miller spearhead NORS.
The Spectator reported in February of a powerful drug circulating in the city which left users unconscious and with patchy memories.
The drug - a potent mix of fentanyl and benzodiazepine - does not respond to naloxone, which Ritchie said is a particularly helpful option to reverse an overdose in remote areas with long emergency times.
We have a lot of people dying from something that is preventable," says Ritchie.
A small part of that solution is NORS, a bridge intended to fill the gap between users and the drug that could quickly render them helpless.
Oona Krieg, Brave's chief operating officer, said the company has several technological offerings to keep users safe, including a mobile app linking drug users with remote supervision.
Other products include buttons that can summon help and sensors that detect if someone is motionless inside a washroom or other enclosed space.
It just seemed like another tool to put in the proverbial tool belt," Krieg said of NORS. We need a multitude of solutions. This problem is so incredibly complex, incredibly multifaceted."
- With files from The Canadian Press
Sebastian Bron is a Hamilton-based reporter at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sbron@thespec.com