Rural areas of Missouri may soon have the ability to combat opioid-related overdose deaths thanks to a state-led project.
In 2016, in the state of Missouri, 908 people died of a heroin or opioid overdose.From December of 2016 up until May 7th of this year, 774 lives had been saved by Naloxone, or commonly known by the brand name, Narcan.
The Missouri Overdose Rescue and Education or MORE project wants to train, educate and distribute Narcan to first responders in rural areas.
The South Howell County Ambulance District was awarded the contract to be the training entity for the 9 counties in region G.
“We train each of the districts to be able to take care of their own. Fire services, police departments, sheriff’s offices, resource officers in schools….things of that nature. They become the trainers and then they can train their own personnel,” paramedic Richard Cotter said.
So far, Cotter has taught one class but hopes to teach two classes per county up until September.
“They’ll go through the training and they’ll sign an agreement contract with the MORE project. They’ll get two doses of this. They’ll administer this nasally. This gives them the ability to asses the patient and determine if it’s an opioid overdose and they can utilize this. Once they administer it, they go online and do a survey sheet and information sheet and then their able to get more doses to replenish the stock that they have.”
The Narcan is provided by the state for free.
The project will allow for better data collection.
Cotter says the drug works between five and ten minutes when administered nasally.
“If they recognize that a person is having an opioid overdose, they merely take it out of the package, they make sure they have a clear nasal passage, they insert just to the fingers, then it’s a brisk push button to administer and that’s all there is to it.”
In Missouri, anyone can buy Naloxone at a pharmacy without a prescription.
For information about training courses, you can contact the South Howell County Ambulance.