Chuck Kiessling - the current president of the Pennsylvania Coroners Association - can’t tell you how many opioid overdose deaths the 67 members of the Pennsylvania Coroners Association handled last year.
It’s not because there are too many to count — but that’s probably true, too, he said. It’s because there’s not enough manpower to finalize the association’s annual report. His best estimate lies around 4,880 statewide for the whole year, almost 240 more than the federal Drug Enforcement Administration detailed in a July report fueled by coroners’ reports.
And that’s a problem, DEA officials say.
“Our report, it quantifies what drug is responsible for deaths,” said Patrick Trainor, special agent for the DEA in Philadelphia. “In some counties, that drives a lot of our enforcement activities.”
It took Beaver County District Attorney David Lozier to launch a study of county 911 calls to determine just how much the epidemic was impacting the community. Lozier was inspired by voters he met while campaigning door-to-door in 2015. Many begged him to do something about opioids.
As elected officials in Pennsylvania, coroners are required to report a cause for every death. That is where the DEA is running into a brick wall trying to figure how what drugs are killing people.
Trainor said some coroners say they’ve been told by the state coroners association not to release the information, but officials from the association say that isn’t true.
“Some coroners are very, very cooperative in giving us data, and there are some that are not,” Trainor said. “Some we have had to serve with subpoenas to get stuff. Why? We don’t always get an explanation. Because they’re busy, some tell us.”
Kiessling, a nurse and paramedic who has served as coroner of Lycoming County for 18 years and is the current president of the Pennsylvania Coroners Association, said that’s true. Most elected coroners are part time, at best, he said, and as more and more people die from opioid overdoses, the workload gets heavier.
Kiessling said he doesn’t understand the emphasis on overdose death data. “The people that make it to my office, we can’t do anything for,” he said. “It isn’t going to impact the living.”
But it is, Trainor said. The data helps law enforcement and public health officials understand what drugs are killing people and what areas need the most help.
“It helps us to identify which areas are the hardest hit,” he said. “Which counties might need more Narcan than others, which counties are in need of more treatment resources. That report, it quantifies what drug is responsible for the deaths.”
Further Reading:
“Pennsylvania Underestimates Death Due to Opioids by More Than Half!”; http://sco.lt/5mMtVp
“The Other Cost of the Opioid Epidemic: Increased Taxes”; http://bit.ly/opiodsandtaxes
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