“We have to make every effort we can to keep them alive long enough to get them in treatment,” said James Garrow, spokesman for the Philadelphia department of public health.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jul/18/philadelphia-opioid-safe-injection-site-plan
By Kate Kilpatrick
[I]n the world of public health, success and failure are measured in preventable deaths. And for that reason, Farley has become a key figure in the city’s battle against the overdose crisis, which claimed more than 2,100 lives between 2016 and 2017 in the doctor’s first two years on the job.
By Max Marin
Across the sidewalk, a woman named Kelly sat on a folding chair and watched Herens move down the block. She had heard about the cluster of overdoses, but it hadn’t deterred her from buying crack. She said she wasn’t interested in carrying Narcan: “I feel like it wouldn’t matter if I died,” she said. Her eyes welled with tears.
Herens walked over, flier in hand. It couldn’t hurt to learn a bit about it, she said. Kelly nodded, managed a smile, and took the flier.
By Aubrey Whelan
Viner said the department’s harm reduction coordinator was doing street outreach in West Philadelphia on Wednesday to encourage crack-cocaine users to take precautions against an overdose, such as not using alone; taking a small “test dose” first; and having naloxone on hand. She said the department was distributing the opioid overdose-reversal medication to those drug users, as well as testing strips they can use to see if their drugs are tainted with fentanyl.
By Joel Wolfram
Health Department officials advised healthcare providers to remain vigilant for signs of opioid overdose “even if the drug consumed is reported to be a non-opioid.” Officials are also encouraging clinical toxicology testing to test reported cocaine users for fentanyl as well. So far, clinical toxicology tests for two patients confirmed that fentanyl was the only substance detected, health department officials said, while further tests are pending.
By Max Marin and Christopher Moraff
“Everyone sort of knows, if they read the paper and follow the news, that fentanyl is in all of the heroin now,” said Caroline Johnson, the city’s deputy health commissioner. “Some of the cautions that people are told when they’re using heroin is to take it very slowly, to do a test dose, have naloxone present in case of an overdose. We don’t say those things to cocaine users or crack users.
By Aubrey Whelan
Fifteen people in West Philadelphia overdosed on what is thought to be a combination of crack cocaine and the synthetic opioid fentanyl over the weekend, city officials said.
By Aubrey Whelan
Neighborhoods across the city saw alarming spikes in fatal overdoses, according to data from the Medical Examiner’s Office that show that while the epidemic may be less visible in places like South and West Philadelphia, scores of people there are dying.
By Aubrey Whelan
The Collected Works of Jim Garrow 