One local library teamed up with the Wicomico Health Department to host Naloxone trainings

September is National Recovery Month and during this time to raise awareness, it also appears a troubling new trend is making headlines. 

According to the Associated Press, reports show that across the country librarians are coming face-to-face to the heroin and opioid epidemic as drug users are using the libraries to get high. 

The libraries are a free open-access environment with quiet areas, which are susceptible to misuse. 

The American Library Association encourages librarians to get training on interacting with groups such as drug users or partnering with police and social workers. 

Locally, the executive director of Wicomico Public Libraries states they have not encountered a drug overdose in any of their facilities, but they are making sure their employees are aware. 

The library even has a security on staff to make sure the environment is safe and used for proper use.

The Wicomico Public Library has also teamed up with the Wicomico Health Department to host free Naloxone trainings, which are offered every second Tuesday of the month.

The Wicomico Health Department coordinator, Brian Polk, states that the Naloxone kits are now better than those offered last year. The Naloxone is more concentrated, which has four milligrams compared to two milligrams provided in the older kits. 

The kits are provided to the Health Department through a grant from the state. 

They have been hosting these trainings for the past three years and Polk says the attendance has increased. The first year they had 150 people and last year they reached up to 376 people. 

He says overdoses have increased over the last 3 years and having these trainings done with multiple agencies will increase every agency to now how to operate Naloxone. 

To sign up for these training sessions, click here.