While the San Joaquin County Health Care Services Agency has taken great steps to increase the available of overdose-blocking drug naloxone in the wake of the fentanyl epidemic, they’re expanding the availability of the life-saving drug by placing it in an unlikely place.
Vending machines.
In a release that the county agency issued on Friday, naloxone nasal spray will now be available at three of the county’s health-focused vending machines – located at the Public Health Services administrative offices on Hazelton Drive in Stockton, the first-floor lobby of the County Human Services Agency on E. Washington Street in Stockton, and the Stockton Metropolitan Airport on Airport Way in Stockton.
“The research has shown that administering naloxone buys valuable time to get someone treated by a medical professional,” San Joaquin County Health Care Services Agency Director Greg Diederich said in a statement about the new program. “With a growing ease-of-access to fentanyl-laced drugs and other very powerful opioids, this continues to pose a safety concern for our region.
“By providing free naloxone in our public health vending machines, we increase the likelihood that it can be used by the public to save lives in our country.”
It wasn’t too long ago that the county was relaxing its EMS protocols to allow for EMTs and other trained first responders to administer naloxone – that previously could only be administered by paramedics or medical doctors.
But with fentanyl overdoses skyrocketing in California that’s to the availability of the cheap and very potent opiate, and the fact that the drug started popping up in all kinds of other illicit substances sold on the street, health officials began making the substance – which works to temporarily reverse the effects of an overdose – much more available.
And the effort to prevent fentanyl overdoses is a multijurisdictional one.
With the launch of a media campaign intended to educate the public about the dangers of fentanyl being launched by the San Joaquin County District Attorney’s Office, health officials began holding town halls with the public to inform residents about the dangers that fentanyl – which often pops up in counterfeit opiate pills circulating the street – poses to the general public. Health officials began providing complementary naloxone spray kits to those that attended.
For additional information about the program, visit the website for San Joaquin County Public Health Services at www.sjcphs.org, or call 209.468.3823.
To contact Bulletin reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com.
