2 inmates at Yellowknife's jail overdose on opioid drug

Two inmates at Yellowknife's jail overdosed on an opioid drug earlier this month.

On the evening of Nov. 12, corrections officers at the North Slave Correctional Centre noticed an inmate was in medical distress.

He was taken to the jail's health centre and later transferred to Stanton Territorial Hospital, where doctors determined he had overdosed on some kind of opioid drug.

Opioids are a category of drugs that includes Fentanyl, OxyContin, codeine and morphine. It's not clear which drug was involved.

Officers at the jail immediately began a search of cells and found another man showing the same symptoms.

"We identified a second person that was in distress," said Parker Kennedy, the director of corrections with the justice department. "However he was treated in the facility and was not escorted to the Stanton hospital."

Kennedy said the jail went into lockdown.

"Part of that is making sure everybody is safe and doing a cell by cell search and making sure, if there is other contraband, it can be identified."

Both men recovered from the overdoses.

Kennedy says there's been a review of the incidents and changes have been made to the way the jail screens for drugs. He wouldn't give specifics, citing security reasons.