There were some perhaps surprising findings in the past year’s data on drug poisoning deaths that was shared with Greater Sudbury city council this week.
Not only did Public Health Sudbury & Districts acting Medical Officer of Health and CEO Dr. Mustafa Hirji tells councillors most opioid deaths aren’t from people using needles, he also told them the vast majority of local drug poisoning deaths aren’t occurring out on the streets among the city’s community of hundreds of homeless people but in private dwellings.
As such, said, “The visible part of the substance use crisis we see amongst homeless people is unfortunately the tip of the iceberg.”
Hirji delivered a presentation on the topic of drug poisoning deaths during Monday’s community and emergency services committee meeting of city council members, which served to dispel a number of local misconceptions.
Although he said needle drug use is widely believed to be the most deadly, he noted that of local opioid toxicity deaths from 2018-24, 47.3 per cent have been a result of inhalation only and 4.1 per cent have been via injection only.
Hirji’s presentation highlighted a significant spike in overdose deaths within the health region in recent years, which saw deaths rise sharply from 17 in 2016 to 117 in 2020.
Last year, there were 106 deaths, and Hirji said they’ve projected a further drop so far this year.
Although various offshoot impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have also played a role, Hirji noted that a clampdown on the legal supply of opioids helped kick off the deadly trend of drug poisonings.
“We tried to take some quick-fix action to address it,” he said. “We decided to really clamp down on the availability of opioids, which is the substance most people were addicted to, and when we eliminated the legal supply of opioids, where people were being prescribed under a physician, people turned to the black market.”
The suspected drug poisoning mortality rate in Sudbury and Districts is 62.2 per 100,000 people, which ranks it No. 3 among health units in the province, behind Thunder Bay District and Northwestern District.
The provincial average is 22.4 per 100,000.
Of Sudbury and Districts suspected drug poisoning deaths from 2022-25, 384 took place in private residences and 119 took place in other locations.
The majority of deaths were among people who had a permanent residence, with 402 housed people dying, 54 deaths among people experiencing homelessness, and 47 people classified as “other.”
Although the number of deaths is a relevant number, Hirji said there are a great number of additional people who have suffered physical, mental and poverty-related issues as a result of substances.
As he did with the following evening’s presentation on the Public Health Sudbury and Districts 2026 budget, Hirji urged city council members to continue pushing for the province to step forward.
Governments need to put more funding toward affordable housing and substance use treatment and emergency care, including harm reduction, he said.
“We are maxed out in terms of people using substance use treatment,” he said. “We have wait-lists … and the access to that care is just not there.”
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.