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| How can you save a life from an overdose in Escambia County? Find out below.... |
As I learned last week on my Coffee with the Commissioner livestream with First Judicial Circuit Chief Medical Examiner Deanna Oleske---we are experiencing a lot of preventable opiod deaths in our area.
Distrubingly, for the first time in recent memory, Alcohol has been overtaken by Fentanyl as the drug which takes the most lives via overdose throughout Florida. Statewide, drug overdoses were up 57% in the first 6 months of 2020 when compared to the same time period in 2019.
In Escambia County-the figure is even more grim. Our overdoses are up nearly 60% in that same timespan. And according to the Medical Examiner we are experiencing more deaths than are normal, with 95% of the cases her office sees being deemed "preventable" by the medical examiners office. Another thing that the doctor pointed out to me during our chat is that methamphetamines locally are now being cut (laced) with Fentanyl in many instances--which leads to addiction and a surge in overdoses. Also on our coffee meeting was Escambia Public Safety Director Eric Gilmore, who echoed the doctor's concerns as he reported our EMS units had administered more than 300 doses of NARCAN in just the first three months of this year to help prevent overdoses in patients treated in the field. 300 in 3 months!
So what is NARCAN and what can the average citizen do to help this overdose epidemic?
NARCAN refers to the drug Naloxone. This drug can quickly and safely revive a patient who is suffering an opiod overdose. It is a nasal spray that anyone can administer to someone who is overdosing. It will rapidly bring them out of and reverse their condition, it will save lives.
Get NARCAN and have it with you. Do it. Keep it in a desk drawer at work, in your car's glove comparment, at your house. Get some, learn how to use it, and have it where you can get to it if you need to get to it.
The Health and Hope Clinic of Pensacola, the only area clinic that has NARCAN to distribute to the general public for free, reported in their April/May 2021 newsletter that they have, over the last year, distributed more than 1000 doses of NARCAN locally. And they have received reports of at least 45 doses of this NARCAN having been used in Escambia County to prevent opioid overdose deaths!
Their effort to distribute NARCAN was established via a $100,000 grant that Health and Hope Clinic received in late 2019 from the philanthropic organization IMPACT 100 of the Pensacola Bay Area. This grant from this group paid for training, an awareness campaign, and for associated costs incurred by this clinic with taking on this new role in the community. Before the Health and Hope Clinic became an authorized distribution point for NARCAN in Pensacola--the nearest location available to the general public to get NARCAN was 100 miles away in Walton County!
So if you are ready, willing, and able to help save a life---call Pensacola's Health and Hope Clinic at 850-479-4456 and find out how to get your NARCAN kit so you can help save a life!
1 comment:
If some one wants to overdose and kill themself, I don't see how that is my problem.
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