Sudbury paramedics, hospital roll out new approach to opioid overdose calls

Greater Sudbury's paramedical services and the city's hospital, Health Sciences North, are partnering up to offer more options to people with opioid use disorders.

They will soon launch a new pathway for patients that involves offering suboxone in the field and transportation to the hospital's addiction services unit instead of the emergency room.

Suboxone is a medication that helps reduce cravings and withdrawalsymptoms.

With a patient's consent, it could be administered after one has received naloxone, a life-saving opioid overdose reversing drug.

Kevin struggles with an opioid use disorder and lives in downtown Sudbury. CBC is not using his full name because of the stigma around drug use.

He started treatment with suboxone and methadone in the last few months in an effort to never have to repeat what he calls "the worst withdrawal ever"that came after receiving naloxone.

"I mean, you have to go to the bathroom and everything comes out of you, it feels like your organs are touching the water," he said.

"I'm talking squirming out of your clothes, can't sit still, snotty face, sweating like crazy It's absolutely brutal, at least 12 hours of hell but it feels like months."

Kevin saidthe initial suboxone treatment, followed by regular doses of methadone, has helped him stop using opioids for now, after years of struggling with addiction.

"I don't even crave it," he said.

Suboxone in the field, followed by withdrawal management

The new option offered by emergency paramedical services and Health Sciences North is meant to provide more tools to people who have experienced overdoses.

The province recently directed paramedics to administer suboxone in the field instead of waiting for the patient to arrive at the hospital.

Melissa Roney, deputy chief of paramedics for Greater Sudbury Paramedic Services, hopes this new tool will ultimately help patients access the hospital's withdrawal management centre.

"With the liberal use of narcan [naloxone] in the community, we were encountering a lot of patients in opioid withdrawal," she said, adding hese patients are at an increased risk of dying.

Roney saidthere are two to three opioid-related calls on average per day, and research shows 30 per cent of patients who die from an overdose have used emergency medical services in the year before their death.

"We've seen patients decline transport to hospital over the years, and for us, that number has doubled between 2019 and 2023."

While diverting overdose patients away from the emergency room and into addictions services is not necessarily new, the new option being proposed hopes to broaden access to withdrawal management more generally.

Withdrawal management as an option

Dr Tara Leary is the medical lead for addiction services at Health SciencesNorth.

She saidthe emergency room isn't necessarily the best option for patients who have experienced an opioid overdose, although it will remain an option for those who want it.

"Really, their emergency or urgent care needs have been addressed, and there's no need to follow it up with a long wait at the emergency department," she said.

Leary saidwithdrawal management services are offered 24/7 at a facility on Pine Street in downtown Sudbury.

She saidpatients who were treated with suboxonein the field will have the option to continue in withdrawal management or simply return to the community.