A woman in her forties who was part of the group of numerous victims of overdoses potentially linked to fentanyl, which occurred earlier this week in the city center, lost her life in a hospital center.
This was confirmed on Thursday by the Montreal Police Service (SPVM), specifying that his death was officially recorded on Tuesday. The woman was 42 years old.
The victim’s file has been transferred to the Coroner’s Office, which will conduct an investigation into the circumstances of his death. At this point, the link between his initial transport to the hospital and the overdose is already well established, but we cannot yet confirm whether this is what actually caused his death.
Last Sunday, nine people, including seven homeless Indigenous people, were taken to hospital for possible fentanyl-related overdoses. The latest news is that five of them have since been released from hospital.
“The community is devastated,” said the general director of Projets Autochtones du Québec (PAQ), Heather Johnston, on Sunday. “We have speakers who had to return home. Everyone is traumatized. »
In all, seven residents of the Hôtel des Arts, an emergency shelter for homeless Indigenous people located on Saint-Dominique Street, in the Ville-Marie borough, had to be hospitalized at the University Hospital Center de Montréal (CHUM) during the day. Three were in the shelter when responders had to call paramedics to help them.
Montreal Public Health (DRSP) had also launched an investigation in the wake of this affair “in order to identify the circumstances of these overdoses and determine with the community the awareness-raising interventions to be enhanced”.
Concerned, the DRSP recommends in particular that consumers frequent supervised consumption services and avoid consuming alone or “all at the same time” in a group. It is also strongly suggested to have sufficient naloxone available and to reduce the dose of the drug to test its effects, especially if the drug comes from a new source.
With Vincent Larin