Saskatoon overdose calls surge as drug-checking service lost

The Ministry of Health is warning of a high risk of overdoses in the Saskatoon area. Stacey Hein has the details.

The Saskatoon Fire Department says it responded to 195 overdose calls in the past two weeks.

That total already surpasses the typical monthly call volume seen earlier this year, with 166 calls in January, 178 in February and 165 in March.

Toby Esterby, chief operations officer for the Saskatoon Community Clinic, says they are seeing the spike firsthand, with numbers now approaching last spring’s surge. According to the fire department, March 2025 saw 509 overdose responses.

“We are seeing numbers that are approaching, if not the same as, the worst of the numbers from last spring,” Esterby said.

The fire department said about 30 per cent of calls were within five blocks of Prairie Harm Reduction. The organization closed last Thursday, following the March 26 shutdown of its supervised consumption site, when it lost its federal exemption.

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With it, access to a drug-checking machine known as a Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometer was lost, a key tool for identifying substances and informing alerts.

Esterby says information was critical and, without it, responders do not know what they are dealing with or whether naloxone will work, since it is only effective for opioid overdoses.

“We’re flying blind when we’re doing any response. We don’t know what folks have taken. We don’t know what the unexpected substance is, so we don’t know how to counteract that quickly,” he said.

No decision has been made on a new location for the drug-checking machine, according to mental health and addictions minister, Lori Carr.

“Because there’s no exemption any longer, that machine can’t be used. So, we’re just determining what will happen with it next,” Carr told reporters Wednesday.

In a statement, the Ministry of Health says there is no data at this time linking the recent spike in overdoses to the closure of Prairie Harm Reduction.

“There was also a rise in overdoses reported in Saskatoon in spring 2025, while Prairie Harm Reduction was still operating,” the statement said.

With one less organization, Esterby says many are bracing for things to get worse this summer.

“There’s just so many people that we already knew we weren’t going to be able to keep up, and now we have one less provider doing the work,” he said.