I received a phone call this morning from Greg Caswell at the Emerald Foundation.
The Rotary Interact Club of J. Percy Page High School has been selected the winner of their youth environmental award , the Ron Kruhalk Award, for the province of Alberta.
The award will be presented in Calgary at their annual awards program on June 5, 2018. I don’t think we will be able to attend as it is in Calgary. They want to send out a video production crew to make a video about our spring cleanup and tree planting project.
The award is also $1,000 , that they would present during the spring cleanup project.
This past Tuesday we heard from Alex Campbell, pictured, a Paramedic and Public Education Officer with Alberta Health Services. He spoke to us about the provision of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) in Alberta and also gave us some basic information about Fentanyl and its impact in our community.
The EMS in our province serves four million Albertans, and their dispatch services handled over half a million calls last year. They also provide a transfer service using fixed wing aircraft for patients from more remote areas and provided critical care and transport for fifty-five hundred patients in this way last year. In addition, the STARS helicopter, which is funded separately by donations, flew another two thousand missions. They have four thousand EMS practitioners and five hundred fifty ambulances in Alberta. Alberta Health Services uses contract providers to deliver services and there are currently about thirty different contractors. These often include local fire services as they are also trained to handle some types of medical emergencies and are often closer to the emergency. In many cases both the EMS and Fire services will co-respond as the firefighters provide a valuable complementary service to the paramedics.
Alberta also has the first stroke ambulance in Canada. It has a CT Scanner on board and all the equipment needed for immediate treatment of a stroke victim. It is run from Edmonton, and will often meet incoming ambulances with stroke victims, pull off to the side of the road, transfer the victim to the stroke ambulance, scan and treat them immediately, then transport them to the hospital. This gives the patient quicker access to treatment and results in much better outcomes, as every minute counts with stroke victims.
Alex also gave us an introduction to the Fentanyl problem in our community. Fentanyl is an approved medicine that has been in use for some time now and is a very effective pain killer. It has a fast onset and wears off quickly so it is often used by paramedics for patients with broken bones. It is also used when patients need to be intubated to help them breathe, as it effectively suppresses their natural attempts to breathe.
Fentanyl became a drug of abuse by a round about route. It started with the development of a very effective (and also addictive) long lasting oral pain medication called Oxycontin, which came to be widely prescribed. Unfortunately, it also became widely consumed illegally by crushing and snorting it, or by dissolving the tablets so that it could be injected. In 2012 the formulation was changed so that the tablets could not be crushed or dissolved and addicts began looking for alternatives. As fentanyl is relatively easy and cheap to produce, gives a similar high and is also highly addictive, it became a drug of choice for illegal dealers. It can be easily purchased on the internet from many different illicit production facilities in China and is easily shipped into Canada by mail. The fact that it is extremely potent, with only one milligram needed, and has a very narrow range of safety, two milligrams will kill fifty percent of people, does not discourage addicts.
The fact that it is so potent makes it very lucrative by weight, with one kilogram being worth twenty million dollars on the street, as compared to marijuana at ten thousand dollars per kilogram, or heroin at one hundred thousand dollars per kilogram. A small letter weighing less than thirty milligrams, which cannot legally be opened by Canada Border Services without the addressee’s permission, can contain six hundred thousand dollars worth of fentanyl. The fact that such a small amount is needed per dose also means that in a powdered form it cannot be ground fine enough or mixed well enough with filler to make oral pills with a safe consistent dose. Unfortunately, this is how the drug is prepared by dealers, who grind and mix illegally sourced fentanyl with caffeine powder or other filler using an ordinary bullet blender and then press it into pills using a small illegal pill press. The result is pills that contain any where from no fentanyl to six milligrams or more. These pills can also not safely be split to lower the dose as the fentanyl particles are not all the same size or distributed evenly enough. In addition, it is also commonly now added to marijuana, fake oxycontin pills, methamphetamine, cocaine and other drugs of abuse to increase their addictiveness.
In 2016 we saw three hundred and sixty six deaths from fentanyl in Alberta and in 2017 we saw five hundred and sixty two. Deaths are occurring at all ages and at levels of society, this is not just an inner city problem. The current line of defense for fentanyl is Naloxone, which effectively blocks the effect of fentanyl, but is not a perfect answer to the problem. Naloxone needs to be available to be injected quickly once a person stops breathing, and someone who is not also using needs to be available in order to do this. Also, because it is often mixed with other drugs, which it does not treat, it may not be fully effective. The relaxed access to Naloxone kits and the opening of safe consumption sites for addicts will help to stem the tide, but it is definitely not the perfect solution. We all need to work together to find better ways to deal with this problem.
In closing, we would like to thank Alex for his expertly presented, interesting and informative talk.
Greetings Rotarian members and younger guests, After a brief introductory session, several of you suggested you'd like to invite people to another interactive session with the brain in mind. Let's do it! Let's bring together older and younger participants for a special inter-generational brainstorming session on April 24th . Together let's LEAD ROTARY INNOVATION WITH THE BRAIN IN MIND. We'll integrate our ages, survey our intelligences, toss in a dose of the brain's wellbeing chemical and enjoy a growth mindset outcome together! Oh, we'll enjoy lunch too! Expect fun interactions as we design service opportunities for a new era, all while you discover how you are smart. Supported by our club members, energized by you, and facilitated by Ellen Weber. Hope to see you there!
We would like to invite you to attend the Rotary Club of Edmonton Strathcona- Special Lunch Meeting on Tuesday April 24th, 2018.
We are having a special meeting to plan and lead Rotary innovation with the brain in mind, and to encourage more young people to get involved with our Rotary Club.
We plan to have some round table discussions with our current club members, and some dynamic young people, like yourself, to “Connect The Thoughts”. It will be facilitated by our club member, Ellen Weber PhD. We will look at current life challenges in our community and beyond, and we plan to develop Rotary based solutions, and potential projects and initiatives.
We will be meeting at our regular club location, the German Canadian Cultural Association, 8310 Roper Road, Edmonton, T6E 6E3. The lunch meeting starts at 12:00 noon and will finish at 1:30 PM.
If there are other people you know who would like to attend, please feel free to invite them, just let me know their names.
There is no cost to you. All we ask is for you to RSVP to confirm if you can attend. I hope you can make it.
A number of volunteer opportunities exists with YESS. The bingo events are listed below. Check also the one day event, YESS 2018 Gala for Youth at THIS LINK.
Hello, We are in search of volunteers to help work at a Caesars BINGO in West Edmonton Mall. YESS has been selected as one of the charities of choice. They require at least 2 volunteers at any of the following dates:
Sunday April 1st – Evening Shift
Friday May 25th - Evening Shift
Saturday September 8th – Afternoon Shift
Thursday October 4th – Evening Shift
Sunday November 25th – Evening Shift
Please let me know if you or anyone you know would be willing to volunteer a shift in support of YESS at the Caesars BINGO hall in West Edmonton Mall. Thanks you so much.
Our Rotary group has partnered in a joint venture with the Rotary Club of Pretoria to help raise funds for the New Hope School in Pretoria. Patrick Gibson has put together a presentation that he will be making to the other rotary clubs in our area to encourage them to help us with this venture. Our goal is to put enough funding in place for us to be able to apply for a Rotary International matching grant.
Patrick gave us the same presentation he will be making to other local rotary groups. It included a short introduction on the New Hope School, followed by a video that has been prepared by the New Hope School. The New Hope School has been one of the projects of our club for some years now, and most of our members are well aware of the work they do in schooling for handicapped children in the Pretoria area. They provide many services above and beyond the usual schooling activities, such as physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy and many others, as needed by their students.
They receive only basic funding from the local government, so must fundraise to provide these other services. Some of the specific projects our funds could be used for would be a specialised playground, or programs to provide technical skills such as kitchen skills, nail and hair salon skills and sewing skills. Patrick has also put together a ‘Go Fund Me’ page on the web, on which people can get more information, view the video and make contributions. We will also be adding a link on our Rotary web page to this site.
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