Naloxone for Newcastle? School board considers drug antidote administration policy
Weston County School District No. 1 staff may soon be invited to complete free online training if they would like to be prepared to administer naloxone, also called Narcan, which is the trade-name for the device that delivers naloxone. Naloxone is an opioid-overdose antidote.
The school board has approved the first and second reading of a narcan administration policy, but it will not be official until it is approved on the third reading. The board’s next meeting is on Dec. 11.
Under the new policy, staff members who would like to take the training would submit their names and certification to the Wyoming Department of Public Health to gain “free” access to the product, Superintendent Brad LaCroix said in a phone interview.
“I don’t think anything’s free, but apparently the state is able to provide that to individuals that will complete the training,” he said.
LaCroix said that no one, to staff knowledge, has experienced a heroin overdose on school grounds, but he noted that there was an incident in a nearby school district.
“Knowing the situation that happened in Moorcroft a couple weeks ago, it can happen here as easy as it can anywhere,” LaCroix said at the Oct. 30 school board meeting, where he asked the board to consider allowing staff to administer naloxone.
Many school district personnel also travel, so the training could be useful wherever they go, he said. He anticipates about 50 to 80 people would want to complete the training.
“I think to help everybody, including students and staff, it would be wise to adopt a policy and allow those who would like to go through the training and have the product on hand if needed,” he said.
LaCroix told the News Letter Journal that he will be more than willing to apply the training if he encounters someone who has overdosed, whether that’s on or off of school grounds.
“It was really important for me to have because if you do come up with a stakeholder, a staff member, a student, you do want to be in the help mode, because it’s a very scary thing when somebody is not responsive,” he said. “Probably really no different than taking a CPR training.”
According to the Wyoming Department of Health, naloxone is “a temporary opioid overdose antidote that reverses the effects of opioids.”
“It cannot be abused, and giving naloxone to someone who is not overdosing on opioids will not hurt them,” the department said.
LaCroix said the “only thing” he’s heard from parents is, “Why are we waiting this long, knowing that it is a real issue, knowing that we’re in a small community, but there’s a really good chance that it is here?” He hasn’t yet encountered a parent who expressed any concerns about bringing naloxone to school grounds.
“I think most parents that I’ve talked to are just appreciative that there’s somebody that is there and is able to help,” he said.
In July 2017, Wyoming law changed from allowing exclusively medical personnel and certain emergency medical services professionals to administer naloxone to allowing everyone access to the medication, according to the department. Naloxone hydrochloride, the active ingredient in NARCAN® 4 mg nasal spray, which is available over the counter, “can quickly reverse an overdose by blocking the effects of opioids and restore normal breathing within 2 to 3 minutes in a person whose breath has slowed, or even stopped, as a result of opioid overdose.” If fentanyl is present, more than one dose may be necessary.
Qualifying businesses and organizations in Wyoming can receive the nasal spray for free if they establish a drug overdose treatment policy. Directions for doing that are at health.wyo.gov/behavioralhealth/mhsa/mat/. More information about the training is at getnaloxonenow.org.