North Texas drug overdose cases continue to climb, MedStar reports
MedStar crews treated 87 overdose patients in August, up 21 from the same time last year, MedStar Mobile Healthcare officials said.
According to data released by the ambulance provider for Fort Worth and the surrounding area, crews treated 1,887 suspected overdose cases between May 2019 and August 2022. The August numbers are the highest in that time frame.
Matt Zavadsky, MedStar’s chief transformation officer, said the numbers are very concerning.
Two of the August overdoses were intentional and 34 were considered unintentional. Zavadsky said sometimes people accidentally overdose by taking more than one medication or not taking medication as prescribed.
The bulk of the overdoses, 51, were for undetermined reasons. Zavadsky said in those situations the patients weren’t able to tell first responders what caused the overdose.
“They just took the medication for the first time and they had a severe reaction,” he said. “And with the prevalence that we’re hearing across the country of laced medication, medication that has, for example, fentanyl in it ... may be contributing to this increase.”
Zavadsky said the high cost of medication sometimes tempts people to turn to third-party sources, but it’s always safest to stick with established distributors like CVS or Walgreens.
“Let’s say you get prescribed Percocet for pain, because you’ve gotten an injury or something like that,” he said. “And a friend happens to have some from when they were prescribed Percocet, you know, six months ago or a year ago. Or somebody says, ‘Hey, I know somebody who has some of those and I’ll just get you some, and you know, it’s just any of that could be possible.”
In January, MedStar partnered with the nonprofit Recovery Resource Council as a step toward reversing the upward trend in overdoses.
MedStar community paramedics and substance abuse counselors from the nonprofit visit overdose survivors at home and offer them substance abuse counseling and refer them to community services.
Zavadsky said the results are encouraging.
According to the MedStar report, 186 people or families have received at least one service offered by the program, 138 have been referred to other community resources and 436 kits of the opioid overdose treatment Narcan have been provided to 129 families.
“These are people that survived the overdose and now maybe we have their attention,” Zavadsky said.
Resources
National Drug Helpline: 844-289-0879
This story was originally published September 21, 2022 at 5:27 PM.
