TORONTO — Ontario will expand access to Naxolone, an antidote for overdoses of opioids like fentanyl, as part of a new provincial strategy to combat an increasing number of addictions and deaths.
The province will make Naxolone available free as an antidote for overdoses, while at the same time it will de-list high-strength formulations of long-acting opioids from its drug formulary.
British Columbia, the epicentre of opioid deaths in Canada, added Naxolone to its drug formulary last year to combat a huge rise in fatal overdoses.
Ontario also named its chief medical officer of health, Dr. David Williams, as its first "provincial overdose co-ordinator," and announced a new narcotics monitoring system to let doctors know how patients have already been prescribed.
There will also be a new surveillance and reporting system to monitor opioid overdoses, and a province-wide expansion of the "patch-for-patch" program for fentanyl prescriptions.
Ontario will also spend $17 million a year to operate 17 chronic pain clinics across the province and expand chronic pain training for physicians.
The federal and Ontario health ministers will co-host a two-day summit on opioid addictions in Ottawa next month.
Police in Alberta and Manitoba recently arrested people with the drug carfentanil, an elephant tranquilizer about 100 times more toxic than fentanyl. Experts say a dose of carfentanil as small as a grain of sand is enough to kill someone.
