Pharmacist helps save life of overdosing man ahead of new training

New drug-store program in B.C. to focus on opioid-use treatment

When an overdosing man was found in a drug-store washroom in Courtenay last month, pharmacist Tara Oxford knew just what to do.

She said a 24-year-old had gone into a London Drugs washroom and was still inside after 40 minutes, so a manager used a key to check on him. He was found slumped over with drug paraphernalia around him.

Oxford stepped up when a staff member came to the pharmacy looking for naloxone.

“I just happened to be at the register with a customer at the time,” she said. “I guess I just went into automatic mode.”

A volunteer firefighter was already in the washroom giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation when Oxford arrived.

“During that time, I was drawing up the naloxone,” she said.

She gave the man a shot in his thigh, which turned his face from blue to normal colour within minutes. Paramedics arrived to give him oxygen, Oxford said, and in no time he was able to stand up and walk to the stretcher.

He returned to the store later that day to express his thanks.

Oxford’s actions came shortly before the B.C. Pharmacy Association announced a comprehensive new program for giving its members added knowledge about treating people for opioid use. The program goes over and above the use of naloxone, which is often used to treat people overdosing on fentanyl, a strong synthetic opioid that has been at the centre of the ongoing overdose epidemic in B.C.

Other types of opioids include heroin, codeine, morphine and oxycodone.

“This is a new type of training for pharmacists,” said Bryce Wong, director of special projects for the pharmacy association. “Pharmacists have been involved in caring for patients with opioid-use disorder for many, many years and pharmacists are often the health-care professionals that patients have most contact with.

“So this program is new in that it’s focused on training pharmacists about all of the various, new medications which are used to treat opioid-use disorder, as well as educating pharmacists about stigma that patients face in terms of trying to access treatment.”

The program will include workshops and online study.“It’s really meant to help improve their engagement with these patients, to improve the experience they have in pharmacies, along with understanding everything about the new medications and all the rules and regulations that go around that,” Wong said.

He said naloxone training will be a part of the program.

In B.C., there are already at least 500 pharmacies that offer take-home naloxone kits, he said.

“A lot of pharmacists have educated themselves about naloxone.”

Within about two years, the program will become mandatory for all pharmacists that are involved in dispensing opioid-related medication. More than 3,000 pharmacists are expected to receive the training during that time.

“Given everything that’s happened with the opioid crisis and all the new treatments which have emerged over the past couple of years, it’s just time to update the treatment and get pharmacists up to speed,” Wong said.

Previous mandatory training in the area has been concentrated on methadone, an opioid used to treat addiction to other opioids.

Overdoses of illicit drugs were the suspected cause of 98 deaths in B.C. in August and 134 in July.