Overdose reversal kits given to heroin users at UK Healthcare hospitals
Thursday, First Lady Jane Beshear and Attorney General Jack Conway announced that heroin/opiate overdose reversal kits will be available to people treated for overdose at UK Chandler and Good Samaritan Hospitals.
The kits include the drug Naloxone, also know as Narcan, which doctors say immediately reverse the effects of heroin overdoses. The kits are intended to stop overdose deaths according to healthcare leaders and hopefully decrease heroin addiction.
Doctors say a heroin overdose stops a user’s breathing and can cause suffocation in eight to ten minutes. They say sometimes that’s not enough time for help to arrive.
230 Kentuckians died from heroin overdoses in 2013, acceding to the Attorney General’s office. Final numbers for heroin overdoses in 2014 are not yet available.
Narcan has no potential for abuse, according to healthcare professionals. Dr. Roger Humphries, chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine for UK Healthcare hospitals, says the drug is “incredibly safe but incredibly potent.”
Right now the drug it is not covered by Medicaid or many private insurance companies. Healthcare professionals say even if users receive a prescription, they are not likely to fill it because they can’t afford it. They say Narcan usually costs $30-$50.
Overdose patients will receive a kit, at no cost to them, when they leave the hospital.
Kentucky leaders say the kits will save lives and provide a second chance for people to seek treatment for their addictions.
About 2,000 kits will be distributed to UK Healthcare hospitals, the University of Louisville Hospital and Saint Elizabeth Hospital, the three hospitals in Kentucky with the highest number of heroin overdose deaths.
UK Healthcare hospitals will receive about 300 kits, based on the 223 people it treated for heroin overdoses in 2013.
The funding for the kits is provided by the Substance Abuse Treatment Advisory Committee (SATAC).
Governor Steve Beshear created SATAC to administer $32 million in settlement funds that Attorney General Conway secured from two pharmaceutical companies. SATAC will spend $105,000 to purchase the 2,000 kits.
UK Healthcare leaders say they expect to start handing out the kits April 1, 2015.
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