Antidote to opioids
The pilot program will be launched in the city of Saskatoon. Health officials say the kit will be available soon and users, along with anyone who could potentially witness an overdose, will be instructed on how to use it. The antidote kit contains naloxone, the very antidote paramedics and hospitals use in overdose cases.
“The take-home naloxone kits do not replace the need for immediate treatment by trained medical professionals,” Saskatchewan Chief Medical Officer Dr. Saqib Shahab told CTV News. “But in the event of an opioid overdose, may buy some critical time for first responders to reach the patient and begin treatment.”
Naloxone restores breathing, compromised during an overdose, and can be used in overdose situations involving fentanyl, heroin, methadone, morphine and oxycodon. In recent years there’s been a dramatic increase in overdoses in Canada, in particular involving fentanyl, often mixed into fake OxyContin and sold on the street.
Fentanyl deaths in Canada
Fentanyl is hundreds of times stronger than heroin and it is killing people all across the country. Last year in B.C. there were 300 people who died of an illegal drug overdose and 25 percent of those who died had taken a substance that contained fentanyl.
“This really is a disaster that’s happening right across Canada,” Philip Emberley of the Canadian Pharmacists Association said recently. “I don’t think any community is actually immune to this at all.”
Saskatchewan had 25 fentanyl-related deaths in the 32 months between January 2013 and August 2015 and half of them were in Saskatoon, which is why the pilot program will begin there.
“We’re starting with Saskatoon just because that’s where it seems to be the biggest problem right now in Saskatchewan as it relates to the misuse and overdoses related to fentanyl,” the province’s health minister, Duncan said Wednesday.
“If we see that there is a need to roll this out in other parts of the province, we would consider that. But right now that’s where our biggest area of concern is and so it seems the appropriate place to start.”
Both Alberta, which had 145 fentanyl-related deaths in the first six months of 2015, and B.C. already have an opioid antidote kit program in place.
