Heroin ODs soar in 2015 in NKY

Heroin overdoses inundated St. Elizabeth emergency rooms in 2015, ending with 1,168 cases of reversed overdoses compared with 745 the year before.

But the year-over-year jump, at 56.7 percent, is just more of the same to emergency staff.

"We're definitely feeling the impact, but I don't think, after what we've seen before, we were surprised," said Ashel Kruetzkamp, nurse manager for St. Elizabeth Edgewood emergency department.

"We know that there's a lot to be done in the community," Kruetzkamp said.

St. Elizabeth released its 2015 report to The Enquirer on Monday. It illustrates the rise in heroin overdoses the emergency staff turned around with the life-saving drug naloxone through the years.

Every year since 2011, when Kruetzkamp took it upon herself to track the overdose saves, the hospital system has seen growing numbers of people coming in overdosed.

The emergency staff only counts those who acknowledge that they've used heroin, so there could be more but they did not admit to using heroin.

Last year St. Elizabeth started giving away a naloxone rescue kit to every patient saved in its emergency rooms. The hospital has continued to provide treatment resource guides, but it's unclear how many patients are using the services – or trying and failing at treatment available.

Jim Thaxton, coordinator for the Northern Kentucky Heroin Impact Response Task Force, noted that fewer overdose patients were taken to emergency rooms in November and December of 2014 than in 2015. He said it's too early to tell whether that decline will continue.

But over the years the hospital emergency rooms averaged 62 heroin overdoses per month in 2014 and 97 per month in 2015.

There is also indication that more people are using based on who the hospital sees: "There are new users of heroin every day," in the emergency rooms," Kruetzkamp said.

"We wish we could do more," she said. "We treat them. We give them resources. But then we are putting them back out in the community."

It's a community, like so many, with full detoxification centers and limited medical assistance.

"You feel a little hopeless."