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ST. CLAIRSVILLE – Lisa Ward, associate director at the Mental Health and Recovery Board for Belmont, Harrison and Monroe, spoke with the Belmont County Board of Health on Monday about the possible implementation of Project Dawn.
The ‘Dawn’ in Project Dawn stands for Deaths Avoided With Naloxone, which is exactly what this program intends to do. It’s a community-based program that provides overdose education and take-home overdose reversal kits containing naloxone to individuals, first responders or family members who have have completed training and were determined to meet the program criteria.
According to Ward, naloxone is a legal unscheduled opiate blocker that can be used to reverse an opiate overdose. Right now, it must be prescribed by a physician, an advanced practitioner, a registered nurse or a physician’s assistant. It restores breathing within two to eight minutes and has no pharmacological effect or potential for abuse. If opioids are not present, the drug causes no adverse effect.
“Heroin overdoses have surpassed anybody’s expectations over the past five years in our communities. It struck me to think that five people die every day from an overdose. It is a problem. It’s a growing concern,” Ward said.
Statistics show that growing is the key word here. Drug overdoses have become the leading cause of accidental death in Ohio since 2007. The state has seen a 366 percent increase in drug overdoses from 2010 to 2012. Heroin involved deaths in particular have increased from 16 percent in 2008 to 36 percent in 2012. Project Dawn hopes to combat the issue, and save the lives of Ohioans and their loved ones.
In March 2014, Gov. Kasich signed HB 170 into law, which allots access to naloxone for friends and family members of addicts, given that they undergo the training. All first responders, including police officers, firefighters and basic paramedics, can carry the drug as well.
To eliminate the possible fear of calling for help, the bill includes a “good samaritan” clause that protects someone who gives naloxone to an overdosing person and then calls 911 from prosecution, even if they were using drugs as well. It also protects health care professionals who prescribe the medication to anyone who is experiencing, or about to experience, an opioid-related overdose from criminal liability.
As of today, the State of Ohio has 31 operating programs, the first one originating in the Portsmouth Health Department. Ward hopes to see these numbers grow and localize by establishing Project Dawn Training Sites in local communities, particularly Belmont, Harrison and Monroe.
On March 18, training will take place in Jefferson County, where the “trainers will be trained” to become trainers, or Project Dawn Overdose Response Educators, in the first place. Trainers will be identified at each health department. From there, clinic hours would be available for those interested to receive training. One focal point of the training is the understanding that, even when naloxone is administered, 911 must be contacted and the person that overdosed must be taken to the hospital.
“One of the major, major issues around the education piece of this is they have to call 911 because they’re at more risk for an overdose after they’ve had this administered,” Ward said.
Training can take place in small groups or one-on-one, and from there, naloxone will be administered one of two ways: It can be picked up at clinic site if the site has an unlimited category II or category III TDDD license, or the trainee will receive a voucher to pick it up at a pre-approved local pharmacy.
There is a refill on the drug, but it will be majorly monitored. The outcomes of the reversal drug use will be tracked as well.
“We want to know if somebody has used the medication. We want them to come back and let us know if they reversed an overdose, and what happened with it,” Ward said.
The Mental Health and Recovery Board for Belmont, Harrison and Monroe has given $10,500 to implement the initial program, funding which was received through a Southeastern Ohio collaborative board agreement.
Ward said HB 4 is moving through the senate. The bill would provide $1 million to allow police agencies to order large supplies of naloxone from city and county health departments. It allows standing orders by physicians to furnish the naloxone to high risk persons or trained persons without the physicians being present and also authorizes pharmacists to dispense the medication.
Ultimately, Project Dawn wants to save lives, not just in the moment, but for the long term as well.
“A lot of times when I talk about this, folks will ask me in my professional opinion how I feel about handing naloxone to an opiode; don’t I feel like I’m telling them to go ahead and use? I think for me, being in the field as long as I have and working with so many folks who are addicted to various substances, I understand that it’s a disease and I’m not giving naloxone to them so that they can continue to use; I’m hoping that if it is used and it brings them back, that we’ve saved a life and possibly they will then enter recovery and we will save somebody,” Ward said.
Courtney can be reached at hcourtney@timesleaderonline.com.