Paramedics assigned full-time to ByWard Market amid toxic drug crisis

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It is a first in Ottawa: a paramedic assigned directly to the ByWard Market seven days a week.

The Ottawa Paramedic Service’s new ByWard Market strategy began earlier in July amid an increasingly toxic drug supply and growing overdose crisis. Just a few weeks in, there are already questions about whether one full-time paramedic will be enough to meet the demand.

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In the first week of the program alone, paramedics responded to 65 calls, said Logan Martin, acting superintendent of the Ottawa Paramedic Service. Twenty-five of those calls resulted in patients being transported to hospital for further treatment.

A few days into the initiative, Martin said she told paramedic Chief Pierre Poirier the number of paramedics dedicated to the program would need to be reevaluated if the volume of calls remained so high.

Thirteen of the service’s advanced care paramedics — who have received additional training with a focus on cardiac resuscitation — are assigned to the program. One of those paramedics is on duty responding to calls and patrolling the ByWard Market seven days a week and 12 hours a day.

The program was set up in response to a sharp increase in 911 calls in the ByWard Market, a significant percentage of them related to the worsening toxic drug crisis.

The aim of the program is to be able to respond to calls for overdoses as quickly as possible, Martin said. “When people are overdosing, time is of the essence.”

The program will also help keep ambulances on the road throughout the city by allowing paramedics to determine whether the call requires an ambulance transfer to hospital or not. Many of the 911 calls to the Market do not, Martin said.

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“Individuals don’t always need our care, but, when they do, people are really sick from the toxic drug supply.”

She said the situation in the ByWard Market was increasingly complex because of new drugs in the community and the recent closures of two supervised consumption sites in community health centres. Two were shut down temporarily earlier this year because of harmful fumes from drugs that were being heated. The site at the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre was scheduled to reopen on July 15.

Martin said there had also been a recent trend of people experiencing seizures, further complicating care of overdose victims. Advanced care paramedics can administer drugs to stop seizures, she noted.

“It is very complex with this drug supply, which continues to get very dangerous,” Martin said.

Public health and police officials warned earlier this year that a new and dangerous drug known by the street name Pyro had been found in Ottawa’s unregulated drug supply. The drug, N-pyrrolidino etonitazene (etonitazepyne), is 10 times more toxic than fentanyl and up to 1,500 times more toxic than morphine.

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Beyond emergency care, paramedics are also building rapport and trust in the community, Martin said, and building relationships with other area organizations, including some, like Inner City Health, which have options for people who do not want to be transported to the hospital, but wish to remain in the area.

Martin anticipated that the rest of the summer would be busy for the team of advanced care paramedics, part of an overall response to a dangerous and complex situation.

“I think what is happening is complex, it is a significant challenge and there is not only one solution,” Martin said. “There is a lot that needs to be done, but we are optimistic that this will be a piece of the puzzle.”

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