Stunning increase in overdose calls fraying mental health of Nanaimo firefighters Apr 27, 2018 3:28 PM

NANAIMO — Overdose calls are having a mounting impact on Nanaimo Fire Rescue members who will undergo training to better protect their mental health from trauma caused by the crisis.

Nanaimo Fire Rescue chief Karen Fry said they responded to a record 461 overdose calls last year, 72 per cent of them reported in the downtown area. She said their members are increasingly taxed mentally by the often disturbing incidents.

“We’re getting a lot of burnout from firefighters, they’re going to the same individuals sometimes in the same day, if not the same week,” Fry said. “There is resiliency training that we will be completing with our fire department this summer, it’s going to help build that.”

Fry said resiliency training for more than 100 NFR members will be completed by this summer, consisting of courses led by trained in-house members. She said the sessions can’t happen soon enough, as their firefighters are dealing with “a lot of mental health issues” from the crisis which is impacting all areas of the city.