New naloxone auto-injectors coming to Delaware high schools
Health officials in Delaware have accepted a donation of 2,000 cartons of the over-dose drug naloxone.
They’re coming in the form of auto injectors similar to an epipen. These will go to high school nurses, first responders, addiction treatment centers, and others in Delaware with overdose-reversing medication.
The market rate for these specific injectors is $490, but the state is getting them for free through a company called Kaleo out of Richmond, Virginia.
According to the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services, naloxone was administered in overdose situations 1,244 times and revived 668 people in 2014.
Dr. Karyl Rattay, the director of the Delaware Division of Public Health says, “The more naloxone we can get out there in the community the more lives you can save. We are very focused on getting naloxone into the hands of the right people.”
Dr. Rattay’s statement includes the hands of local school nurses. 47 ABC talked with Lara Booth, the floater nurse for the Indian River School District about this.
Booth says, “We are the first responders in the school. If the first responders in the community have it, I think we also should as well.”
Every single public high school in Delaware has the auto-injectors. Booth says they got them last August, but they were set to expire at the end of February. The donation the state received for 2,000 more came just in time.
Booth continues, “We have something going on in the community, an epidemic. I think it would be naive to think that it’s not going to spill over into other areas.”
The local schools include those areas. According to the state department of education, no Delaware schools have had to use the injectors yet. However, every nurse has standing orders on how to approach a student suffering from an opioid overdose.
Booth says, “It has to be someone who is a known user or has something on them like paraphernalia.”
The student also needs to show physical signs.
For critics who believe having these injectors in school building may be a way of telling students it’s okay to do drugs because there’s now a back- up plan, Booth disagrees. She says it’s just another tool in the box to save students’ lives. If one were to succumb to an overdose…
Booth continues, “It would be awful. I mean the ripple effects would be for years.”
Booth is scheduled to pick up the new auto-injectors for the Indian River School District on Thursday.
