N.B. medical students lobby government to fund overdose antidote naloxone
CBC News | Posted: May 9, 2017 8:44 PM | Last Updated: May 9, 2017
Free naloxone kits won't 'solve problem' of opiates, but will 'save lives' until solutions found, say students
Medical students in New Brunswick are calling on the provincial government to provide free naloxone kits to those who need access to the life-saving antidote for opiate overdoses.
Naloxone, which can revive someone who has overdosed on opiates such as heroin, Dilaudid and fentanyl, is available at some pharmacies in New Brunswick for about $40.
This is something that we've seen happen in other provinces like Nova Scotia … and so we'd like to see New Brunswick do the same. - Joseph Sanford, medical student
But medical students contend the cost is preventing individuals and community groups from having the kits on hand, said Joseph Sanford, who is in his second year in Dalhousie University's New Brunswick medicine program.
"What we'd like to have is kits that are funded and paid for that community members or IV drug users could access," said Sanford, who is also the government affairs and advocacy committee senior representative with the Canadian Federation of Medical Students.
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"They could go into a pharmacy or they could be distributed [by] community organizations, like AIDS Saint John, that have expressed an interest," he said.
"This is something that we've seen happen in other provinces like Nova Scotia that's been successful and they've committed to doing that and so we'd like to see New Brunswick do the same."
AIDS Moncton is calling for naloxone to be available to everyone from emergency shelter workers to taxi drivers.
Task force to make recommendations
The New Brunswick Department of Health says its task force on fentanyl is looking at whether to make naloxone more available and is expected to make recommendations.
"A provincial Interdepartmental Illicit Fentanyl Preparedness Task Group is in place to oversee the development and implementation of measures to prevent and respond to fentanyl overdoses," spokesperson Sarah Williams said in an email to CBC News.
"The task group is currently assessing effective interventions, their availability and use and will be providing recommendations on future expansion of naloxone to government when this analysis is completed."
Sanford said the medical students realize the government is looking for ways to "solve the problem," but in the meantime, free kits will "save lives."
The students met with MLAs last Friday to discuss the issue, he said.
"With the fentanyl crisis that's sweeping from west to east across the country … we know that it's coming," said Sanford. "We know that it's an issue that we're going to have to combat and we said, 'Well, we should be ready for it.'"
The students expect more people in New Brunswick to turn to street drugs such as fentanyl, given the province's new prescription drug monitoring program.
And as fentanyl becomes more widely available, they expect more overdoses.
"What we've seen happen in Western Canada and in B.C. is truly tragic and it's something that we as medical students, if we can help prevent that from happening here in New Brunswick through lobbying government in asking for something like this, then that's what we wanted to do," said Sanford.