Island Health issued the following Overdose Advisory for the Cowichan Valley on 24 April 2019:
We contacted Island Health on 25 April 2019 and asked for clarification of this Overdoes Advisory.
Our initial question was: “When you say “increase in overdoses” what are the actual figures? How many in the past week compared to whatever benchmark figure(s) you are using in comparison?”
Island Health responded within a few hours, saying: “Thank you for your question. During the week of Apr.14-20, there were 12 overdoses at the Cowichan OPS, which is more than double this site’s moving average (3.4 overdoses each week).”
The Cowichan OPS (Overdose Prevention Site) is located at 221 Trunk Road. So the Overdose Advisory is based only on Overdoses which happened at the Cowichan OPS (Overdose Prevention Site) is located at 221 Trunk Road.
So we asked Island Health two follow up questions:
“Thanks for the reply. So this is based only on OD’s at the Cowichan OPS on Trunk Road? Any other OD’s in the area during the past week?”
“Also, is there a stronger strain of drug out there? Any idea(s) on why this happened in the past week? Any thoughts on whether it will be an ongoing issue?”
Island Health has not responded to these questions at the time of this post but we will post the island Health answer(s) when we get it/them.
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