Safe Station weekly update: Numbers of calls for ODs trending steadily downward

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safe stationThings have been trending steadily now for a few months, and trending steadily on the lower end compared to the same time span of 2015.  I’m pretty happy with things so far.

After speaking with several people looking for more information on what I was recording, I decided to break down the Safe Station visits by time of day to get a perspective on when people are most likely to seek help.  This was for several reasons, but mostly because if anything needs to be done with staffing in the future, or if this program continues to grow and expand, stakeholders may want to take it in a different direction (such as a dedicated group of people to handle the busiest times of the day* – *COMPLETELY HYPOTHETICAL).

It’s interesting to see the breakdown, and it is included on the second page of the fact sheet below.

I also made a change to the terminology used on the graphs and information sheet in regards to the fatalities, and this was at the request of the DEA.  You will now see that “polysubstances” has been renamed “Prescription or Non-opiates” since that is what the number actually represents, and the word “suspected” has been added in front of the deaths number.

One more point of information: While you may be alarmed at the five Spice-related ODs we responded to so far in December, and the large increase of Spice in November, this increase is due to one “problem child” here in the city who refuses all help for his addiction and seizes every time he smokes, which generates a 911 response.


Hickey

 

Christopher Hickey is Director of Emergency Services for the City of Manchester.



About this Author

Carol Robidoux

PublisherManchester Ink Link

Longtime NH journalist and publisher of ManchesterInkLink.com. Loves R&B, German beer, and the Queen City!