Fraser Health offers overdose response training
Weekday-long campaign will include preparation practice drills, a public online demonstration and live chat session on Facebook
In the days leading up to International Overdose Awareness Day this coming Friday, Fraser Health is running a campaign to train people to save lives through drug overdose response and prevention.
From Monday to Friday, the health authority, which covers municipalities and First Nations between Burnaby and Hope, will hold overdose-response practice drills to prepare people to recognize and respond to an overdose.
It will also host a public online demonstration and live-chat session on its Facebook page Monday at 1 p.m.
Dr. Aamir Bharmal, a Fraser Health medical health officer, said harm reduction coordinators as well as mental health and substance use staff will conduct the training, which is meant to serve as a refresher course for people who haven’t used a naloxone kit or haven’t used one for a while.
“We know, within the province, over 114,000 (kits) have been distributed,” he said. “They’re out there, but we just want to make sure that people know how to use them.”
Bharmal said people need to remember that reversing an overdose involves more than just injecting naloxone, and requires properly identifying an overdose, calling 911 immediately, and providing crucial rescue breaths to prevent brain injury.
He said the live chat Monday is meant to be interactive, so that people who visit the Facebook page can ask questions while watching the training video. He urges those who miss the chat to brush up on details about overdose prevention and response at fraserhealth.ca.
“Our real goal is that people keep their skills sharp,” he said.
Fraser Health and its contracted agencies distribute more than 26,000 take-home naloxone kits between April 1, 2016, and June 30, 2018, the health authority said in a news release.
In an April report, the B.C. Centre for Disease Control estimated that for every 10 take-home naloxone kits used, one overdose death was prevented, and for every 65 kits distributed, one death was prevented. The agency estimated that the kits prevented 300 illicit-drug overdose deaths between January 2012 and October 2016, about half linked to fentanyl.
Bharmal said the kits are available for free to anyone at risk of an overdose, but also to people likely to witness or respond to an overdose, including the friends and families of people who use drugs.
A list of places distributing free naloxone kits can be found at B.C. Centre for Disease Control’s harm-reduction website, towardtheheart.ca.