Mayor calls emergency meeting after recent spike in overdoses

A spike in drug-related deaths and overdoses in the city has prompted Mayor John Tory to call an emergency public health meeting this morning.

The call comes in the wake of two young women who died from suspected overdoses in an upscale Etobicoke apartment building on Tuesday night.

The mayor has invited the provincial health minister, the city’s chief medical officer of health, police chief Mark Saunders and other first responders to his office to see if there is anything more that can be done to deal with the rise of Fentanyl-related deaths in the city.

“These are unimaginable tragedies,” said Tory. “These are young people, in many cases, who are somebody’s son or daughter, at the beginning of their life. To have them lose their life because of preventable activity is something that is very disturbing to me as the mayor.”

While the deaths of the two young women in Etobicoke have not been positively confirmed to be from Fentanyl-tainted heroin, at least four other deaths and 20 overdoses over the last week have been as a result of the tainted opioid.

Tory says the city is moving foward with its opioid action plan which includes opening three safe injection sites in the fall and having paramedics and firefighters carry Naloxone, which can reverse the effects of an overdose.