NEW ORLEANS ( WGNO ) — The City of New Orleans Health Department has developed a division to deal with the fentanyl crisis.
WGNO’s LBJ spoke with the division’s director, who pointed out the “alarming” facts of how the drug is affecting our community.
“Last year in New Orleans we lost 523 individuals to accidental drug-related deaths. 6% of those tested positive for fentanyl. So we do know that the majority of people who are dying from drug overdose at least have fentanyl in their system. We’ve seen a, unfortunately, pretty steady increase in the last few years of our drug-related deaths,” said Opioid Special Projects Coordinator Dana Wilkosz.
“Last year 75% of the individuals were male. 56% of them were black. So we know it’s mostly black males,” said Wilkosz.
That’s who’s being most affected in New Orleans?
“In New Orleans, yes. And we have seen across the country a pretty significant increase in drug overdose deaths among people of color. They are impacted more substantially, but we’ve also seen a really rapid rise in deaths among people of color,” said Wilkosz.
For that reason, Orleans Parish Coroner Dr. Dwight McKenna has spoken up since he has been in office, witnessing how many residents have landed in the city’s morgue.
“We’re sounding the alarm to parents, to young people, to everybody who will listen to tell you about the dangers of this drug. We’ve never seen anything like this deadly opioid,” said McKenna.
What’s even more dangerous and frightening is that the drug is being combined with other drugs and the user unknowingly ingests fentanyl.
“That could be some type of pill is marketed as another pill like Percocet but there’s fentanyl in it. We’re even hearing of instances of amphetamines like cocaine or methamphetamines having trace amounts of fentanyl in them. Which is especially dangerous if somebody hasn’t built up a tolerance to fentanyl and they come into contact with that,” said Wilkosz.
The health department has sprung into action with a number of initiatives by making the drug Narcan available to combat an overdose and training workspaces and individuals on helping out.
“We have our Narcan training program and overdose response programs. New Orleans EMS has partnered with Odyssey House Louisiana to dispatch quick response teams to the scene of an overdose. Those are comprised of social workers so it’s an effort to get to that person right away to try to provide support to them and whatever kinds of resources they might need. The New Orleans Health Department is partnering with the DA’s Office to form an overdose fatality review team. That’s in the very early stages. We’re hoping to start that early next year but that’s going to give us a little bit more insight into the people who we’re losing in Orleans Parish. We have this very basic demographic data, but we don’t know whether they’ve been incarcerated, how many times they’ve been in treatment, so this will allow us to do deep dives on individuals who have passed,” said Wilkosz.
As for the living, McKenna has a warning.
“Young people if you are going to use drugs and I don’t want you to use drugs, but if you’ve made the decision you’d better be doggone sure that what you’re buying or what you’re doing has not been mixed with fentanyl or you will not wake up,” said McKenna.
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Why don’t you allow people to get medication for their pain??Really if the government didn’t make it so hard for regular people to get the medication they need then there wouldn’t be much of a problem.Come on people.
cablepowa
22d ago
I'm gonna say it again, HELP people who has survived addiction that are treated with Suboxone by NOT TAKING AWay MEDICAID!! I'm 3 years clean, Medicaid dropped me , all of a sudden my medicine is over $1000. I found a place at OHL to get it cheaper but it's still high priced. I've seen too many people relapse for this reason. some are now dead because they could t get the life saving drug desperately needed because of price!! If the person is clean and passes the test at the clinic the government should reconsider giving that person assistance on the medicine. otherwise, you're fighting for nothing! DO BETTER LOUISIANA
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