New report exposes how lack of resources and support take their toll on health care workers dealing with Alberta’s growing toxic drug crisis

EDMONTON, AB — As deaths due to the province’s poisoned drug supply climb, a new report by Parkland Institute shows how this crisis affects the health care professionals managing patient care, as well as their own well-being and ability to work.

The report, Ripple Effects: The Drug Toxicity Crisis and Its Impact on Frontline Health Workers, lays out the repercussions of the drug crisis for health care workers and potentially every Albertan needing health care. Authored by Registered Nurse and associate professor at the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Nursing Jennifer Jackson, the report lays out in stark terms how health care workers face an uphill battle working in a system not providing adequate resources or support.

Canada’s health care system is struggling with an increase in drug poisoning deaths, with 67 emergency department and 99 emergency medical responses daily. Alberta saw 10,185 recorded drug-related deaths since 2016, with 1053 confirmed drug poisoning deaths in 2024. The majority of drug-related fatalities in 2024 were a result of either fentanyl (94%) or methamphetamine (65%). Previous studies, though informative, haven’t focused on frontline workers that aren’t doctors and nurses. These studies also haven’t studied Alberta-based health care workers.

Jackson’s research focused on members of the Health Sciences Association of Alberta (HSAA), comprised of a variety of health care workers including paramedics, technicians, and therapists. The report surveyed over 530 health care workers and shows how daily issues of inadequate resources and treatment options, lack of managerial and government support, and insufficient knowledge about drug poisonings put frontline workers in a position of having to do more with less.

“Working in a system that doesn’t provide health care professionals with what they need leads to poorer outcomes people living with addictions. The ramifications also ripple out to the workers themselves: many report dealing with burnout, shortened careers, undue stress, and violence on the job,” explains Jackson.

COVID-19 led to an increase in the drug crisis, with one health care worker noting that the financial and emotional toll of the COVID crisis led some to turn to drug use to cope. Many programs and facilities that helped those dealing with addiction issues that closed during COVID were never reopened.

The provincial government’s approach to illegal drug usage is another factor that has increased the problems health care workers, and those more directly affected by the drug crisis, deal with. An abstinence-based drug treatment model that hasn’t proven effective, combined with inadequate funding for housing and mental health interventions, has led to increasingly bad outcomes. Workers reported not being allowed to provide patients with new needles or other supplies that can reduce or prevent overdoses in order to cut costs.

“Our study shows that the current approach to the drug toxicity crisis is not working for anyone – not for patients and not for healthcare professionals. We need to change gears to provide evidence-based addiction services that work for everyone,” says Jackson.

The report highlights that the Alberta government needs to embrace evidence-based methods to deal with the drug crisis, as well as increase funding in areas such as housing, mental health and pharmacare programs, and health care staffing.

The government also needs to embrace harm-reduction strategies alongside other options, as they are proven to reduce overdoses and other harmful outcomes. The current recovery policies reduce the treatment options available to Albertans.

Adherence to an ideologically based addiction treatment model isn’t working and frontline workers are facing the consequences.

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For the full report, visit https://www.parklandinstitute.ca/ripple_effects

For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact:

Rita Espeschit
Research Communications Specialist, Parkland Institute
[email protected]