Overdose cases spike in Louisville: 52 calls in 32 hours
No overdose deaths were reported
http://www.ksat.com/health/overdose-cases-spike-in-louisville-52-calls-in-32-hours
Another week, another cluster of overdoses.
This time it happened in Louisville, Kentucky, where Louisville Metro Emergency Services responded to 52 overdose calls between midnight Wednesday and 8 a.m. ET Friday, said agency spokesman Mitchell Burmeister.
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That was a big jump over the 25 overdose calls received in the same 32-hour time frame last week.
A breakdown of overdose causes was not available, but Burmeister said most of those calls were heroin overdoses. Paramedics also dealt with overdoses of alcohol, prescription medications and other controlled substances.
No overdose deaths were reported, but Burmeister said one person who’d been using heroin died while riding in a car that crashed. The driver also was using heroin, they said.
Other clusters
Such overdose clusters pop up in different spots and authorities aren’t sure why.
In Cuyahoga County, Ohio, which includes Cleveland, at least 14 people died of opioid overdoses over one weekend this month, CNN affiliate WEWS reported.
Already this year, more than 60% of the autopsies conducted at the coroner’s office in Montgomery County, Ohio, which includes Dayton, involved drug overdose deaths.
Nationwide, the spike in opioid overdoses is blamed on heroin and fentanyl, a pain reliever often given to cancer patients. Death rates from synthetic opioids, including fentanyl, increased 72.2% from 2014 to 2015, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Louisville authorities say it’s too early to tell if fentanyl-laced heroin caused the overdoses in their region.
Louisville responds
Heroin is not a new problem in Louisville. Metro Emergency Services answered 695 overdose calls in January — an average of 22 a day.
Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer talked about it during the State of the City address February 2, saying the police department is hiring 150 more officers and adding two new squads of detectives to address crimes involving narcotics.
“We’re collaborating with the DEA on overdose death investigations to get heroin dealers off our streets, and forming a task force with other agencies, including the FBI, the DEA, ATF, the US Attorney, Kentucky State Police and the State Attorney General’s Office, to pursue, arrest and prosecute our most violent offenders,” he said.
Dr. Robert Couch, emergency medical director at Norton Audubon Hospital in Louisville, said many more overdoses are being treated at the hospital and the patients require larger amounts of naloxone. That’s a medication sold under the brand name Narca used to treat opioid overdoses.
A growing number of overdose patients must be admitted to the hospital, rather than treated and released, he said. The emergency room is also seeing more repeat patients, he said.
Filed under: General Problems
This escalating problem is NOT going away.Regardless of how much law enforcement goes after the suppliers,it will never be enough to stop this.It is time for a new approach,and that approach seems unacceptable to politicians.In countries that have legalized heroin and opened clinics that safely supply and administer the drug,these problems are minimized.If the addicted have a safe place to go,od deaths would be drastically reduced.Clinics could also offer programs to help them get off this drug safely.This type of addiction is a medical problem,we would be better off as a society treating it as such.The entire so called war on drugs needs to try new approaches.We are foolish to keep trying to solve a problem using the same old failing ways over and over.
dahhhhhhhhh,,,,Dr.Government should of never ever started playing doctor,,to those w/medical condition that our physical painful,,,,they should of stayed OUT,, of our private medical decision,,,,,,,,this is 75 % there fault,,the rest is on those parents who exploited there adults child death for their own personal revenge,,jmo,,maryw