Preventing Overdose Deaths in Schools

This week, The Baltimore Sun reported that nurses’ offices are beginning to stock naloxone in some Baltimore area schools. With a rise in heroin deaths across Maryland – The Baltimore Sun reported 1,089 people died in 2015 of opioid-related overdoes – school nurses are just the latest to join police officers, family members and emergency health workers who’ve already received training to use the drug.

With the start of this school year, both Baltimore County and Carroll County schools stock naloxone and have trained school nurses and police officers in how to use the drug in case of an overdose in the school. They join Anne Arundel County schools, who began stocking the drug early this year.

Naxolone prevents overdose deaths by any opioid-related drugs, including heroin and fentanyl. The Baltimore Sun reported that 35,000 people who are not health professionals have been trained in administering the drug since 2014. And of those 35,000 people, they have had to administer the drug 1,181 times.

The drug can be purchased over the counter in Maryland by trained individuals, many are family members of people who suffer from addiction. For schools, they can get a stock of it in much the same way they would receive stock of Epi-Pens, through school or health department budgets.  

Now Baltimore City schools and Howard County schools are hoping to follow suit. In Baltimore City, the Sun reports that the Health Department is preparing a naloxone policy to present to school officials, and with Baltimore’s Health Commissioner, Leana Wen, it seems like she won’t give up on the policy easily.

Wen has taken a passionate lead in revamping the way people think about addiction and overdose deaths – pointing out that people do not feel with any other disease that it is acceptable to pass blame on to the person with the disease, or expect that person to stop treatment after a certain period of time.

While the Sun doesn’t provided figures of how many students have overdosed in area schools, it did report that naloxone was used in an Anne Arundel County school on a student. But it seems counter-productive to wait until there is a problem of overdosing in school to stock the drug, as schools do not wait for students to have allergic reactions to be able to hold a supply of Epi-Pens. Naloxone is a preventative drug, and could be the first step to ensure any student suffering from addiction is alive and able to get the treatment necessary to be able to heal. 

Links: 

• The Baltimore Sun - http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/education/bs-md-narcan-schools-20161102-story.html
• Baltimore City Paper - http://www.citypaper.com/news/features/bcp-110216-feature-leana-wen-20161102-story.html