Opioid-related interventions and overdoses exploding in Montreal

In Montreal, over the past five years, the number of Urgences-santé interventions for cases of opioid-related use and overdoses has exploded.

Montreal’s Public Health Department data shows that in 2024 in Montreal Urgences-santé intervened on average three times a day where an opioid overdose was treated by administering naloxone, an antidote used to reverse the effects.

“I think it’s a little bit already out of control, you know, when what we’re seeing is kind of outrageous,” said Félix-Antoine Guérin, Coordinator of the Proximity Intervention Program at L’Anonyme.

In 2020, paramedics in Montreal intervened an average of 25 times a month. In 2024, paramedics, first responders and citizens intervened more than three times as often, 81 times per month on average. That’s nearly three interventions a day.

However, in a recent report by LaPresse, it states that these numbers represent only a fraction of the opioid-related calls answered by front-line workers. Many interventions are not counted in this data, particularly when the patient refuses naloxone treatments.

Treating opioid overdoses is made possible with the use of naloxone, also referred to as Narcan, a fast-acting medication used to temporarily reverse the effects of an opioid overdose to help restore breathing.

“The potency of substances seem to be on a continual trend where it’s always more and more powerful,” said Guérin. “So I was talking with my colleague who’s in charge of the drug checking part of the program and what we’ve been seeing, us, and different groups is new substances that haven’t been seen before.”

Naloxone is increasingly being administered to people by other first responders or community workers even before paramedics arrive, maximizing the chances of survival for the person in an overdose state.

“For a long time, intoxications were an issue in British Columbia and so on and so forth, and it has made its way to Montreal,” said Jean-Mari Dufresne, Operations Chief of Urgences-santé. “We noticed in the past few years that a lot of the ODs seem to occur downtown, Centre-Sud. I mean, they’re all over our territory, but the majority of them are located downtown.” 

Those working on the front lines say that more education and more supervised consumption sites are also needed to address the rise in drug overdoses.

“The first step is not to consume that, that would be the ideal, the utopia. Secondly, education to the population on the consumption of such products is also very important,” Dufresne told CityNews.

“Having the availability of Narcan or naloxone within drug stores and pharmacies is been a game changer for us. It’s been a game changer to the effect that, like I said earlier, we’re accelerating and optimizing the intervention, making sure that the patient that’s living through that overdose gets that Narcan rapidly.”

Montreal Public Health data also reveals a rise in the number of suspected intoxication-related deaths in the city. 19.1 deaths per month in 2024 compared to 12.2 deaths per month in 2021.

“The issue with overdoses is that it’s a death, it’s a form of death that’s easily avoidable. It’s just like we aren’t able to do so because of stigmatization and issues with access to services so I think that’s the true crime,” Guérin said. “We need different services, different models. There are people that are comfortable in a mobile setting like ours and other that need bigger sites.”