Report from the OH&S Canada magazine (Winter 2023)
Ontario is offering employers free naloxone kits, and the training for workers to use them, in an effort to combat opioid overdoses. Kits are required to be available in high-risk workplaces by June 01, 2023.
Naloxone is a life-saving medication that can temporarily reverse an opioid overdose, restore breathing within two to five minutes, and allow time for medical help to arrive.
“I know only a small minority of opioid-related deaths occur in workplaces, but I’ll be damned if we don’t do our part in helping save lives., said Monte McNaughton, Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development.
“We’re past the point of talking. We need all hands-on-deck to end the stigma surrounding opioid overdoses and dependency so we can save lives,” he said at a downtown Toronto bar.
Ontario, like the rest of Canada, is in the middle of an opioid epidemic made worse by a toxic supply of recreational street drugs, he said. Of the workers who died from opioid-related causes last year, 30% per cent were employed in construction – by far the most impacted industry.
Bars and nightclubs have also seen increased opioid usage and accidental overdoses, often because of recreational drugs laced with deadly opioids such as fentanyl and carfentanil.
High-risk workplaces also include employers who become aware, that there may be a risk of opioid overdoses in their workplace. That includes, for example, if a worker discloses an opioid use issue, if needles or other opioid paraphernalia are found at the workplace or any information that would lead them to “reasonably conclude there is a risk of overdose in the workplace,” the province said.
My opinion
There is a place in the Ontario Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) that deal directly with Naloxone.
Section 24, subsection 2(1) of the OHSA states,
Naloxone kits
25.2 (1) “Where an employer becomes aware, or ought reasonably to be aware, that there may be a risk of a worker having an opioid overdose at a workplace where that worker performs work for the employer, or where the prescribed circumstances exist, the employer shall,
(a) provide and maintain in good condition a naloxone kit in that workplace; and
(b) comply with any other prescribed requirements respecting the provision and maintenance of naloxone kits and the training referred to in subsection (3).”
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