The opioid crisis in America is a serious problem and it’s getting worse. Seattle, Washington’s morgues are running out of room to store the dead bodies.
King County in Seattle, Washington is experiencing an overwhelming number of fentanyl overdoses, and they are quickly running out of storage space for the victims.
Public Health Director for King County, Dr. Faisal Khan, announced the problem during a health board meeting last week. He said that one key indicator of just how bad things were in 2022, and perhaps a sign that they will get worse this year, is that the County Medical Examiner’s office is now struggling to find space for bodies as the fentanyl-related death toll rises.
The meeting was held on January 19, and the biggest problems in public health for 2023 were addressed. Dr. Khan said the opioid crisis and overdose prevention had been one of the area’s top concerns for the past decade, but opioid use is getting worse.
Dr. Khan said that when the final review of overdoses is completed, 2022 will set the record for the highest number of fatal overdoses ever recorded in the county, and they expect that the final count of fatalities might be double the number recorded in 2019.
Like many other parts of the US, fentanyl overdoses have surged in the last few years in King County. In 2020, they recorded 173 fentanyl overdoses. By 2021, the number increased by 122%, with 385 fentanyl-related deaths. The highest recorded number of fentanyl deaths in the county, with 685 fatalities, was recorded in 2022.
The overdose tragedies are straining resources at the medical examiner’s office. In addition to drug overdose deaths, the medical examiner also deals with other deaths in the county.
When the number of deaths gets too high, bodies are stored on autopsy gurneys and funeral homes in the area help out with storage.
Dr. Khan said that the main reason for fatal drug overdoses is because drug gangs add fentanyl to cocaine, heroin, and fake pills and flood the market with the fentanyl-laced drugs.
According to the CDC, fentanyl is 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine. Fentanyl is a highly addictive drug and drug dealers mix it with other drugs to create a highly addictive substance that keeps the users hooked. It is easy to overdose on fentanyl when it is mixed with other drugs.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse states that almost 92,000 people in the US died from drug-related overdoses in 2020 compared to 70,630 people in 2019. Fatalities from synthetic opioids, mainly fentanyl, were 56,516 in 2020.