With overdose deaths climbing in Whatcom County, Executive Satpal Sidhu announced a suite of actions to battle the fentanyl crisis on multiple fronts.
Through an executive order signed on Wednesday, April 10, Sidhu established actionable goals on everything from prevention and intervention to treatment and recovery.
“Fentanyl is a pernicious poison that is wreaking havoc in our community. Its human toll is devastating. We must intensify our response to correspond to the magnitude of the crisis, and that is what I aim to do today,” Sidhu said in a prepared statement.
This follows a February executive order by Bellingham Mayor Kim Lund announcing similar actions to combat the fentanyl crisis, beefing up police patrols downtown and establishing a first-responder office near the Commercial Street Parking Garage. Lund’s move came months after the Lummi Nation declared a state of emergency due to the opioid epidemic.
“It really does emphasize that this is a very, very broad problem and it needs broad solutions,” Whatcom County Health Officer Greg Thompson said. “So that involves health care. It involves public health. It involves the justice system. It involves housing. It involves access to basic needs. It’s all these things together.”
In Whatcom County, more than 90 people died of drug overdoses in 2022. That number climbed to 136 probable overdose deaths in 2023, according to county data.
The need for such a diverse approach is reflected in both the executive order and the resolution, passed unanimously by council Tuesday night, Thompson said.
“There’s not a single solution,” he said.
Council members Barry Buchanan and Ben Elenbaas introduced the resolution on Feb. 6. Since then, the council members met with judges, the sheriff, the prosecuting attorney and elected leaders from Whatcom County’s cities to hammer out a resolution.
Two additional paragraphs were added to the resolution in a committee meeting Tuesday afternoon, ahead of the final vote. The amendments recognized the negative impacts of the involuntary displacement of homeless people, as well as the importance of affordable housing for stability, recovery, sobriety and prevention of drug use and overdoses.
Ultimately, the six-page resolution requested the executive, sheriff, local municipalities and other community partners to move forward with “near-term approaches to address the fentanyl crisis.”
More than 110,000 Americans were killed by drug poisonings in 2022. About 70% of those involved fentanyl, according to a DEA news release.
The executive order signed on Wednesday represents what the county believes can be accomplished with the support of the community and various partners, said newly-appointed county Deputy Executive Kayla Schott-Bresler.
One “glaring gap” in the county’s system the order seeks to address is what happens in the first few hours and days after a non-fatal overdose, Schott-Bresler said.
The county will explore making non-fatal overdoses a reportable condition, implementing a reporting system and increasing capacity to contact anyone who has experienced an overdose.
Currently, anytime a medical professional helps someone who has overdosed, that information is reported. However, by making it a reportable condition, patient information can be shared with an overdose response team case manager. That case manager would then have one business day to reach out to the person, assess needs, develop an individual plan, connect them with services and see what else can be done to prevent a future overdose, Thompson explained.
“If someone has had an overdose, we want to be able to immediately offer them care and support to stop that from happening again,” Thompson said. “Our goal with this is really to save lives and offer people care.”
Community partners and other jurisdictions will be vital in accomplishing the county’s goal of establishing a temporary facility until the 23-hour crisis care center is built. Such a facility is designed to fill a gap in the county’s spectrum behavioral health services, providing a wide range of resources, as well as a safe place for people recovering from an overdose, or transitioning from jail or other institutions into the community.
“It will help people get the short-term care they need and make connections to longer-term services,” Sidhu said last year after the state budgeted $9 million for the project.
The executive order also highlights the county’s priority in managing the homelessness crisis in the county, as well as the need to lobby at the state and federal level for additional resources to tackle a national crisis playing out in communities countywide.
Since February, Lummi Chairman Anthony Hillaire has continued to push both Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and President Joe Biden to declare a state of emergency.
Isaac Stone Simonelli is CDN’s enterprise/investigations reporter; reach him at isaacsimonelli@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 127.
