Prince George paramedics saw a 12% year-over-year spike in drug overdose and poisoning calls.
According to data released by BC Emergency Health Services, local medics responded to these calls 1,466 times last year – they only went 1,307 in 2021.
In addition, the northern capital had the sixth-highest call volume among BC cities trailing Vancouver (7,827), Surrey (2,864), Victoria (2,037), Kelowna (1,824), and Abbotsford (1,641).
Like some cities in BC, overdose and drug poisoning calls have seen a steady climb since a public health emergency was called by the provincial government in 2016.
The yearly breakdown for PG looks like this:
- 2016 – 362
- 2017 – 461
- 2018 – 594
- 2019 – 626
- 2020 – 999
- 2021 – 1,307
- 2022 – 1,466
Furthermore, Northern Health saw a 17% spike in overdose calls in 2022 – the largest year-over-year increase among all the health authorities in BC.
The next closest was Interior Health with a 9% increase.
Similar to Prince George, Northern Health has seen an even sharper trajectory in the volume of overdose events attended.
- 2016 – 913
- 2017- 1,085
- 2018 – 1,232
- 2019 – 1,332
- 2020 – 2,077
- 2021 – 2,414
- 2022 – 2,838
Province-wide, paramedics responded to 33,654 overdose events last year – that equates to an average of 92 calls per day.
The average monthly calls are over 2,800 per month.
On January 19th, 2022, BC set a new daily record for receiving 203 overdose/poisoning calls.