According to Alberta Health, Medicine Hat has already exceeded the total number of fentanyl deaths from last year.

“I think what it does show is that Medicine Hat in terms of comparing to itself from previous years,” says Dr. Deena Hinshaw, acting chief medical officer of health for Alberta Health. “That the problem is maybe even getting a bit worse.”

In 2016, Medicine Hat had two fentanyl related deaths. In 2017 there was seven, and as of September 30 of 2018, there’s been eight.

In fact, the South Zone of Alberta is just behind Calgary for the most deaths in the province.

In 2016, there were 13 deaths, in 2017 there were 27, and as of September 30, there’s already been 37 deaths.

“Fentanyl is a deadly substance,” says Inspector Brent Secondiak with the Medicine Hat Police Service “It can kill you first time upon use so it’s definitely an issue here.”

Despite the increase, Medicine Hat still has less fentanyl deaths by population compared to almost every major Alberta city.

On top of that, Medicine Hat hasn’t lost any lives related to other opioids.

“I think provincially we’re still in the grand scheme of things compared to Lethbridge and Grande Prairie,” says Inspector Secondiak. “We’re still in a better place than those two cities.”

Lethbridge has a population of roughly 100,000 and it has already seen 22 deaths, and Grande Prairie with a population of roughly 63,000 has seen 16.

Although the numbers of fatal overdoses are increasing, . Hinshaw says the speed at which they’re growing appears to have slowed down.

“I think that’s one sign that we can take as somewhat encouraging,”she said. “That we’re not seeing the continual upward trends that we’ve been seeing over the last few years.”

Dr. Hinshaw says other communities may be experiencing the slowed increase because of a safe consumption site.

Medicine Hat doesn’t have a site, and it’s also seen the plateau.

Inspector Secondiak says it’s likely because of first responders and the use of the overdose reversing drug Naloxone, also known as NARCAN.

“I hope it’s because our first responders have NARCAN,” says Inspector Secondiak. “Our deployments are up from last year substantially, so we are saving lives that way, our EMS staff has it, our fire staff has it and the police service.”

However, the possible plateau doesn’t mean the opioid crisis is over.

“We continue to have almost two deaths a day in Alberta from opioid poisoning” says Hinshaw. “So even though the numbers seem to be plateauing we have much more work to do.”