Nearly everyone in America today knows of the existence of the opioid crisis and no community is immune to it. That crisis in 2017 in Fayette County claimed one life to heroin and eight deaths to any opioids, and with a number of others visiting emergency rooms or requiring hospitalization. The report is the most recent available.
The 2017 Opioid Related Overdose and Morbidity and Mortality report from the Georgia Department of Public Health showed Fayette County with eight deaths from any opioids and one death from a heroin overdose.
In terms of emergency room visits and hospitalizations per 100,000, Fayette had 11.6 emergency room visits for heroin and no hospitalizations and 12 emergency room visits and 6.7 hospitalizations for any opioids.
When viewed statewide, there were 267 heroin deaths in Georgia in 2017, and 1,043 deaths from any opioid, the report said.
Pertaining to heroin statewide, there were 281 hospitalizations and 1,305 emergency room visits related to the drug.
For any opioid statewide, there were 1,760 hospitalizations and 3,174 hospital visits, according to the report.
In 2017, more than 47,000 Americans died as a result of an opioid overdose, including prescription opioids, heroin and illicitly manufactured fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid.
Also in 2017, an estimated 1.7 million people in the United States suffered from substance use disorders related to prescription opioid pain relievers and 652,000 suffered from a heroin use disorder, according to drugabuse.gov.
While not specifically attributing this to Fayette County’s report, deaths due to opioids and opiates abuse is severely under reported across the nation. Suicides due to depression during withdrawal is generally not reported in these death statistics, and many fatal accidents attributable to the mental condition of the deceased in being altered due to opioid use isn’t reported as a substance abuse death. Life expectancy actually went down in 2017 in the U.S., a trend unheard of in our modern times, and 47K deaths simply would not have that type of impact.