简体中文
From April 1, 2016 to March 31, 2017, an average of 16 Canadians were hospitalized each day because of taking opioids, a jump from an average of 13 people every day two years ago, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) Thursday.
Supplies at a new supervised injection site located in Surrey, BC
The number failed to include people who went to an emergency department but were not admitted, or those who died before making it to a hospital.
The report released by the CIHI shows that young people aged 15 to 24 and adults aged 25 to 44 had the fastest growing rates.
Accidental rates historically were higher among older people, who tend to take more medications.
It's also not clear how many of the hospitalization and emergency room visits were from prescribed opioids or illicit ones.
The main reason for the increasing numbers are that opioids are still readily prescribed in large quantities, that people easily become dependent on prescribed opioids and that illegal sources are also easily available.
Last winter, during the federal government's opioid summit in Ottawa, CIHI signed a joint statement of action to fill in the gaps in opioid data.
It's been working with the provinces and territories, along with their coroners and medical examiners in the country.
Updated numbers from the Public Health Agency of Canada shows that there were 2,816 apparent opioid-related deaths in 2016, about eight people a day. There were at least 602 opioid-related deaths in the first quarter of 2017.
The number of deaths involving fentanyl almost doubled between the beginning of 2016 and the beginning of 2017.
But even new numbers might not capture the true severity of the problem.
The Public Health Agency's 2017 numbers don't include data for Ontario or Quebec. The CIHI's latest report on hospitalizations only has 2015-2016 numbers for Quebec and Nunavut.
(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)
