Overdose alert issued for Saskatoon as April begins with surge in drug poisonings

Suspected overdoses caused by a toxic drug supply in Saskatoon are surging again after plateauing in recent weeks, according to new data from the Saskatoon Fire Department.

In the first 24 hours of April, crews responded to 21 calls for help with suspected overdoses, the department said. Calls had levelled off to about 10 per day at the end of March, but now front-line workers are bracing for a sustained spike overdose reports after consecutive days of higher than average calls.

Late Thursday afternoon, the province's Health Ministry issued an "overdose alert" for Saskatoon based on the rise in suspected cases reported by the fire department and Prairie Harm Reduction.

"Dangerous drugs are in the area," the alert stated. "There is a higher risk of overdose and death from drugs in the city of Saskatoon."

Testing shows a potentially lethal mixture of fentanyl and unknown substances, the alert stated.

Prairie Harm Reduction said in a statement it tested an orange-coloured substance that contained fentanyl.

"We encourage people to use harm reduction strategies, such as drug checking and carrying naloxone, to reduce the risks associated with substance use," the non-profit's statement said.

The fire department says it responded to 837 calls for suspected overdoses from Jan. 1 to March 31, more than double the 324 calls over the same time period last year. In March, there were 509 calls, compared to 115 in 2024.

"We suspect that we've actually got an underestimate of the number of calls that the fire department has responded to," said Pamela Goulden-McLeod, the director of the city's emergency management organization.

The fire department is combing through data gathered from overdose calls in recent months to learn more about the crisis. 

It's important to co-ordinate the data collected by governments and community organizations, Goulden-McLeod said.

"You need to make data-driven decisions to come up with the best way to mitigate this issue," she said. "And the struggle is, until we have that data-driven information, [deciding] what are our next steps is hard."

Data collection and collation is part of the job of the province's emergency operations centre, which was activated to help co-ordinate the city departments and community organizations working on the overdose crisis. 

"We are always checking resource levels to make sure everybody has the resources they need," Goulden-McLoud said.