Pubdate: Tue, 11 Aug 2015
Source: Kamloops This Week (CN BC)
Copyright: 2015 Kamloops This Week
Contact:  http://www.kamloopsthisweek.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1271
Author: Dale Bass

OVERDOSES OVERTURNED

Today's new reality for medical staff like Ian Mitchell and Kirsten 
McLaughlin is simple."In the old days, you'd buy drugs and wonder if there

"In the old days, you'd buy drugs and wonder if there was really 
nothing in them," Mitchell said. "These days, you buy drugs and worry 
you might die."

Mitchell, a doctor, and McLaughlin, a public-health nurse, have been 
leading the way in dealing with the situation, running the first 
program in Canada that sees the emergency room at Royal Inland 
Hospital dispensing naloxone kits with the tools needed to help 
someone overdosing on an opiate.

Naloxone (best known by the trade name Narcan) is an opiate 
antagonizer, a drug that can quickly reverse an overdose from opiates.

The beauty of it, McLaughlin said, is if it's used on someone who is 
not overdosing but showing similar symptoms - someone very drunk, for 
example - it won't harm them.

The kits are easy to use, but require some education first, 
McLaughlin said. They come with gloves, two syringes with needles 
that immediately retract after being used, two vials of naloxone and 
a container to store them, along with alcohol swabs.

There's also a special type of breathing mask with a protective 
barrier, should the person administering the drug need to do 
resuscitation, as well.

With more heroin, oxycodone, heroin and Percocet on Kamloops streets, 
Mitchell and Kirsten McLaughlin want to see the program expand.

Since March 2014, 44 kits have been handed out at the RIH ER and 
there have been three documented cases of their use reversing 
overdoses in Kamloops.

Mitchell said a drug user went to the ER to get one of the kits. He 
learned how to use naloxone and took it home just in case it might be needed.

"That night, he used it on a buddy," Mitchell said.

Since starting the program at RIH, two other hospitals - Royal 
Alexandra in Edmonton and St. Paul's in Vancouver - have begun 
dispensing the kits.

Mitchell and McLaughlin have spoken at many conferences, workshops or 
gatherings about the success of the Kamloops program.

Recently, for example, they spoke at a gathering in Alberta, a 
province that saw more than 100 deaths last year due to fentanyl.

In the Interior Health Authority region, another 588 kits have been 
distributed through other health-care facilities and organizations, 
including ASK Wellness Centre.

They are needed, Mitchell said, due to the influx in B.C. of 
fentanyl, most often masquerading as oxycodone tablets.

It's led to four deaths in Vancouver in the past two weeks, including 
a 17-year-old boy, a couple in their early 30s who had a young child 
and a 31-year-old man.

On the weekend, Vancouver saw 16 overdoses police said are linked to 
pink heroin laced with fentanyl.

"People are buying some pills and just expect to have a good time," 
McLaughlin said. "They don't know they're buying fentanyl."

Fentanyl is a synthetic opiate 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine.

Mitchell said he has also heard the drug is being mixed in with 
cannabis, which is why the B.C. Centre for Disease Control urges 
users to know the source of their drugs, rather than advise against 
using drugs.

"We know people will use drugs," Mitchell said. "This is about harm reduction."

There's an education component to the kits, McLaughlin said. That was 
one of the issues debated before deciding to make the kits available in the ER.

"It's not like you can go home and practise on an orange," she said, 
noting the kits are designed to be easy to use. Injections are to go 
into a muscle. Mitchell added he's hopeful Health Canada will soon 
approve an aspirator that can be attached to a syringe, removing the 
need for a needle.

Another reality, he said, is while intravenous drug users are 
comfortable around needles, most people aren't. In the need for quick 
action to use naloxone, any hesitation can make the difference 
between success and, potentially, death.

It's why the pair wants to see the kits in more locations.

There are four other locations in the city where the kits can be 
accessed: Baker Clinic at 430 Fifth Ave., Kamloops Methadone office 
at 103-220 Third Ave., King Street Clinic at 126 King St. and 
Interior Chemical Dependency Office at 239 Lansdowne St.

Other locations throughout the IHA area can be found by inputting a 
community or postal code online at www.towardtheheart.com/site-locator
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom