Opioid antidote to be available for free provincewide next year

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This article was published 24/11/2016 (3022 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A provincewide naloxone program will be launched next year, making the life-saving antidote available to those at risk of an opioid overdose.

“Starting in early 2017, a provincial naloxone program will launch and will make free naloxone kits available to those at risk of an opioid overdose,” a provincial spokeswoman said by email Thursday.

“To date, wide consultations have taken place with more than 20 potential sites across Manitoba.

Consultations will continue within all regional health authorities to recruit additional distribution sites,” the spokeswoman said.

So far, pharmacies in Swan River have been added to the list of three Winnipeg pharmacies where the kits are for sale.

Street Connections remains the only site that distributes the kits for free.

Concern about fentanyl is growing in pockets across the province, including Selkirk, the Interlake and the Portage la Prairie areas.

In Selkirk, a spokeswoman for the Interlake Eastern Regional Health Authority said by email that naloxone is now being distributed with free clean needle kits in both Selkirk and Pine Falls, along with training on how to use the antidote.

“Prescriptions have also been given to interested parties — no total available ­— but interest in training has been us considering additional sessions,” the health authority spokeswoman said.

In the Interlake this week, some 250 concerned parents turned out for an information session led by local RCMP at the Ebb and Flow First Nation. In the Portage la Prairie area, a local health official said they’re bracing for the fentanyl crisis.

Naloxone is stocked in emergency rooms from Morden to Steinbach to Gladstone and Portage.

Discussions are going on to include the antidote in public health offices and in the free clean needle kits that are available throughout southern Manitoba.

“We are seeing what’s happening in the urban centres like Winnipeg. We’re not at the point where we’re seeing it to the same degree in our region but we are certainly aware and concerned,” said Dr. Denis Fortier, a family doctor in Notre Dame des Lourdes who is also a senior official with the southern Manitoba health authority.

Meanwhile, every front-line RCMP officer in Manitoba is equipped with a naloxone kit.

A total of 1,010 kits have been distributed to RCMP officers. Naloxone comes in a nasal spray.

The move is in response to a growing public health crisis involving the increasing use of synthetic opioids, putting Manitobans at risk of overdoses. First responders are also increasingly at risk of inadvertent contact with the potentially fatal drugs.

“The safety of Manitobans and of our police officers is first and foremost,” chief superintendent Mark Fisher said in a prepared statement.

Fisher is in charge of criminal operations for the RCMP in Manitoba.

“Equipping RCMP officers with naloxone kits is a public safety measure and was a priority for this division.”

Manitoba Mounties haven’t responded to any incidents involving fentanyl, but are aware it is creeping into urban centres and rural communities.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.cabill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca