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Sarah Helm: Drug Foundation Executive Director on the number of drug overdose deaths nearly doubling · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

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  Speaker 1: Back home. You report out this morning from the Mental
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  Speaker 1: Health and Wellbeing Commissioned drug overdose deaths here have almost
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  Speaker 1: doubled in under a decade and the amount of people
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  Speaker 1: accessing specialist mental health and addiction intervention, in other words, help,
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  Speaker 1: is continuing to trend downward. So what's up with that?
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  Speaker 1: Sarah Helm, the NZID Drug Foundation Executive directed with me
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  Speaker 1: this morning. Sarah, good morning, Good morning. How do those
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  Speaker 1: two things compute? You've got more deaths and you've got
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  Speaker 1: less help.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, actually that's true across a couple of different areas.
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  Speaker 2: So we've had a really concern and growth of overdose
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  Speaker 2: fatalities over a number of years now, and we lose
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  Speaker 2: three New Zealanders every week to entirely preventable accidental drug overdose.
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  Speaker 2: Alongside that, we know that there's a certain part of
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  Speaker 2: the population, particularly middle aged people, who if the experience
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  Speaker 2: and overdose, aren't seeking help, they aren't turning up to hospital.
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  Speaker 2: And also we've had a decline in AXI to addiction services,
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  Speaker 2: so that really spells some problems for our community.
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  Speaker 1: So how many people dive overdose in a.
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  Speaker 2: Year one hundred and eighty eight in twenty twenty three,
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  Speaker 2: and now just for comparison, that's over half the road
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  Speaker 2: toll and more than twice the number of people that
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  Speaker 2: we lose to drowning, and that compares about the same
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  Speaker 2: over a number of years now.
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  Speaker 1: And how does that compare to other countries.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, we've historically been so lucky compared to other
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  Speaker 2: countries that I think that we just haven't really paid
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  Speaker 2: attention to this. So our organization over a few years
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  Speaker 2: now have been compiling statistics ourselves out of coronial data
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  Speaker 2: and out of hospitalizations, and it's really showing that we
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  Speaker 2: need to be genuinely concerned about this. And we know
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  Speaker 2: that we also are at risk and do have all
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  Speaker 2: we it is some of the potent opioids that are
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  Speaker 2: causing the problems in North America. We need to act
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  Speaker 2: to make sure that we don't continue to exacerbate this.
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  Speaker 1: What drug are they taking to odon? Generally? What is it?
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  Speaker 2: Heroin the leading types of substances. So often is more
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  Speaker 2: than one two thirds of cases of medicine is involved.
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  Speaker 2: We're talking opioids. Alcohol and benzodiazepines are the main culprits
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  Speaker 2: that might be anything from tramadol to know morphine in
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  Speaker 2: the mix.
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  Speaker 1: So legal stuff interesting. Sarah, appreciate your time this morning.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for coming on. Sarah hol means In
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  Speaker 1: Drug Foundation Executive Director. That report out this morning from
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  Speaker 1: the Mental Health and Well Being Commissioned. For more from
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  Speaker 1: Early Edition with Ryan Bridge.
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  Speaker 2: Listen live to News Talks it be from five am weekdays,
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