Boston Sees Spike in Opiate-related ER Visits

June 11--Public health teams are swarming Hub streets after a roughly 40 percent spike in narcotics-linked hospitalizations -- primarily involving opiates -- that hit the areas around Boston Medical Center and Causeway Streets particularly hard, authorities say.

There were 136 narcotics-related ambulance rides to Hub hospitals during the two weeks ending June 5, a sharp spike over the prior two weeks that saw 99 such emergencies.

"This marks a significant increase from the previous two-week time period," public safety authorities wrote in an internal security bulletin on Thursday. "These transports are believed to be related to opiate abuse."

Devin Larkin, director of the Boston Public Health Commission's Recovery Services Bureau, told the Herald the numbers are driven by several factors, including the arrival of monthly subsidy paychecks from the government and whether the drug is cut with fentanyl, a dangerous synthetic narcotic 50 times stronger than heroin.

"Things change and that would account for some of the highs and lows," Larkin said. "If people are outside and using alone, people are going to call that in, but if people are inside, they might not be transported because there's no one witnessing it on the street."

When the numbers peak, Larkin's bureau sends two-person teams to the hot spots to ask drug users what's behind the rash of hospitalizations. In normal conditions, the teams walk regular routes in downtown, near BMC, Newmarket and Dudley Square.

The teams tell drug users not to get high alone and to carry Narcan with them, Larkin says. "They let them know something's going on in the street, and we want them to be careful," he added.

Narcotic hospitalizations have averaged about 50 per week over the last 18 months. Last year, there were a total of 2,604 narcotic hospitalizations in Boston. This year authorities have analyzed 22 weeks of data and calculate 1,100 narcotics-related hospitalizations, which is on pace to match last year's numbers.

Larkin said the two-week spike falls on the high end, but within the range of the "ebb and flow" of drug transports.

Fatal opiate overdoses claimed 1,379 lives in Massachusetts last year, according to the Department of Public Health. Three-quarters of the 2015 deaths were men, with people aged 25 to 44 the hardest hit by the epidemic.

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