Durham Region Opioid Information System
Durham Region Health Department's Opioid Information System provides the latest opioid overdose-related statistics, including Region of Durham Paramedic Services calls, emergency department visits and opioid-related deaths.
Region of Durham Paramedic Services (RDPS) calls
- Between January 1 and November 26, 2023, RDPS received 612 calls related to suspected opioid overdoses, which is similar to 2022 (527 calls) for the same period.
- In 2022, approximately 573 suspected opioid overdose calls were received by RDPS, which is a decrease compared to 998 calls in 2021 and 725 calls in 2020.
- Between 2017 and 2019, the majority (67 per cent) of suspected opioid overdose calls were located in Oshawa.
| Weekly number of suspected opioid overdose calls | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Monthly number of suspected opioid overdose calls | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Monthly number of suspected opioid overdose calls received by RDPS, January 2018 to October 2023
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| Location of suspected opioid overdose calls | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Per cent of suspected opioid overdose calls for RDPS by location, 2022
Location of suspected opioid overdose calls received by RDPS
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Emergency department visits
There has been a general increase in the number of emergency department (ED) visits for opioid poisonings in Durham Region residents over the past 10 years, with the numbers fluctuating on a month-to-month basis.
Between 2013 and 2022, the rate of ED visits in Durham Region due to opioid poisoning almost tripled from 24.8 visits to 70.1 visits per 100,000 people. Durham Region is lower than the 2022 Ontario ED visit rate for opioid poisonings of 80 visits per 100,000 people.
| Monthly number of opioid overdose visits |
Monthly number of confirmed opioid overdose emergency department visits by Durham Region residents, January 2018 to July 2023
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| Annual rate of opioid overdose visits |
Annual rate of confirmed opioid overdose emergency department visits by Durham Region and Ontario residents, 2013-2022
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Opioid-related deaths
The number of deaths related to opioid poisoning in Durham Region residents has been increasing over the past nine years. In 2021, there were 129 deaths related to opioid poisoning in Durham Region, seven times the number in 2013. The rate of opioid-related deaths among Durham Region residents in 2021 was 17.9 deaths per 100,000 people, which was slightly lower than Ontario’s rate of 19.1 per 100,000 people.
Preliminary data shows there were approximately 40 opioid-related deaths in Durham Region residents from January to July 2023 and 75 opioid-related deaths from January to December 2022. This data is subject to change.
For data December 2021 and prior, see the Public Health Ontario’s Interactive Opioid Tool.
| Annual number of opioid-related deaths |
Number of opioid-related deaths among Durham Region residents, 2013-2021 |
Notes
| Data sources |
Region of Durham Paramedic Services
Paramedic services calls for suspected opioid overdoses consisted of calls made to the Region of Durham Paramedic Services (RDPS) where naloxone was administered (by paramedics or prior to their arrival), or where the patient was thought to be overdosing on one or more opioid drugs or a combination of opioid and non-opioid drugs. Intentional overdoses were included. Because no drug testing was performed, it is possible that the patient did not overdose or overdosed on a non-opioid drug. The diagnosis recorded by the hospital or cause of death determined by the coroner may differ from paramedic services. Not all paramedic services calls result in the patient being transported to hospital. RDPS calls in Durham Region may include non-Durham Region residents. As well, RDPS may respond to calls outside of Durham Region and some overdose calls in Durham Region may be responded to by other paramedic services. Calls by other paramedic services would not be captured in this data. We mapped calls based on the pick-up location of the RDPS call which may or may not reflect where the patient lives. Individuals may have more than one suspected opioid overdose call on separate occasions. The number of calls should not be interpreted as the number of individuals. This data only includes instances where 911 was called and underestimates the true number of overdoses in the community. Emergency department visitsSources: A confirmed opioid overdose emergency department (ED) visit is an unscheduled ED visit made to any emergency department in Ontario and includes ICD-10-CA codes T40.0 (poisoning by opium), T40.1 (poisoning by heroin), T40.2 (poisoning by other opioids), T40.3 (poisoning by methadone), T40.4 (poisoning by other synthetic narcotics), or T40.6 (poisoning by other and unspecified narcotics). For data from April 1, 2018 onwards, the following codes were also included: T40.20 (poisoning by codeine and derivatives), T40.21 (poisoning by morphine), T40.22 (poisoning by hydromorphone), T40.23 (poisoning by oxycodone), T40.28 (poisoning by other opioids, not elsewhere classified), T40.40 (poisoning by fentanyl and derivatives), T40.41 (poisoning by tramadol), T40.48 (poisoning by other synthetic narcotics, not elsewhere classified), T40.6 (poisoning by other and unspecified narcotics). We excluded cases with a query/suspected diagnosis (diagnosis prefix = Q). Each visit was captured only once, even if multiple opioids were involved. The number of visits does not represent the number of unique individuals, as individuals may have more than one visit at different times. Durham Region rates and counts represent patients who were residents of Durham Region and visited any ED in Ontario. As final data were not available beyond March 2023 from the National Ambulatory Care Reporting System (NACRS), preliminary data from the MOH were used for April 2023 and onwards with the same diagnosis codes referenced above. This preliminarily data is subject to change and likely an underestimate of final data. Finally, ED visits underestimate the number of opioid overdoses since not all individuals who have an overdose visit an emergency department. Annual rates for Durham Region and Ontario were extracted from Public Health Ontario’s Interactive Opioid Tool. Opioid-related deathsSources: Opioid-related deaths refers to all deaths in which opioid poisoning was considered as contributing to the cause of death, whether accidental or intentional. The Interactive Opioid Tool excluded deaths due to chronic substance use, medical assistance in dying, homicide, and trauma where an intoxicant contributed to the circumstances of the injury. Deaths were assigned to public health unit based on decedent’s postal code of residence. If residence postal code was unavailable, the postal code of the incident location was used, with location of death postal code being used if no other data available. Death data for 2021 is preliminary and subject to change. |
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