Take-home overdose treatment program now in city
Overdose treatment in Regina has another weapon in the fight to save lives with take-home naloxone kits becoming available in the city next week.
“The kits would help us help patients prevent, recognize and respond to opioid overdose,” said Ken Akan, program manager in mental health and addictions with the Regina Qu’Appelle Health Region.
The kits will be distributed through the health region’s harm reduction methadone program starting on Monday.
Naloxone is an injectable medication used to rapidly reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.
“So what it does is it blocks the chemical receptors in the brain from the effects that the opioids are having,” said Paul Hodson, nurse consultant with mental health and addictions in the health region.
The kit includes a syringe to administer the medicine and two vials of it. If administered properly it can reverse the effects on an overdose and restore breathing to a person experiencing an overdose.
“It could take anywhere from a few minutes up to 10 minutes depending on how much they’ve taken,” said Hodson. “Three to five minutes actually is about the length of when they start to come out of it and it … can be quite dramatic.
“It restores breathing when they come out of the overdose and actually can be quite alert.”
“It has a time period of about 30 minutes to an hour or 90 minutes where it will maintain that effect,” Hodson added. “Depending on how much of the overdose they’ve given, it may come back and that’s why the second one is there.”
The pilot program will target people at-risk of opioid overdoses.
The health region will provide training to people who show interest in getting a kit. Training takes 15 to 20 minutes for individuals or group training could take closer to an hour. Once people have taken the training and received a certificate, a request for naloxone will be filled by the Lakeshore Pharmacy and given to the client along with the kit at the Harm Reduction Clinic.
It is injected into the muscle and can be administered in the thigh, buttocks or deltoid.
“They ’re not having to find a vein; it goes into a muscle. So it’s quite easy to administer in that way,” Hodson said.
Family and partners of opioid users are encouraged to get trained to administer it too.
Hodson said staff encourage people to call 911 as part of the recovery process after administering and to monitor them while they are administering it.
Naloxone kits have became well known due to the high number of fentanyl overdoses in Alberta and British Columbia. In Regina, fentanyl use is not as much of a problem but the kits do help in case of any opioid overdoses for drugs such as hydromorphone, ketamine and anything that has an opioid base.
However in the province there was 10 fentanyl deaths in 2013, 11 in 2014, 17 in 2015 and so far there have not been any this year (2015 and 2016 data does not include deaths that are still under investigation).
The RQHR is the second health region in the province to distribute the kits. Saskatoon launched its pilot project in May and 58 kits have been distributed.
They’re not having to find a vein; it goes into a muscle. So it’s quite easy to administer in that way.