Calgary firefighters administer naloxone daily, says chief

In the month and a half since naxolone became part of every Calgary fire truck's kit, the drug has been administered to patients 45 times.

That's an average of once per day.

Fire chief Steve Dongworthtold city councillorson Wednesday he'sglad firefighters have the life-saving drug, asthey are often on the scene before EMS crews arrive.

• Naloxone kits help Calgary firefighters prevent 25 fentanyl deaths since mid-December

"When Ilook at what's happening in Vancouver right now, we're nowhere close to the kind of frequency of administering naloxone or coming into contact with patients who have overdosed on opioids," he said.

"But obviously when you look at the number of deaths in Alberta, it's fairly significant, the number of deaths in Calgary, very significant again and Ithink we're going to see this as a continuing trend."

According to Alberta Health, from January toSeptember 2016, 338Albertansdied from an apparent drug overdose related tofentanylor anotheropioid193 of these deaths were related tofentanyl.

Calgary saw 82 suspectedfentanyloverdose deaths.

'Challenging the whole community'

Naloxoneis a drug that can temporarily reverse an overdose offentanylor otheropioids, allowing the patient to get emergency medical help.

Dongworth said all firefighters have been trained on its proper use.

"That'spartially my ignorance about just how big a crisis thisis," he said. "This is the whole issue ofopioidsand overdoses for whatever reason whether it's the economy or the emergence of a new drug of choiceis certainly challenging the whole community."

"We're just part of that community and we've reacted to what we're seeing out there at incidents."

The initial supply of the drug cost the department $20,000,which it couldcover in its budget.