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Monongalia authorities, WVU partner to fight overdose deaths

MORGANTOWN, W.Va.— The WVU Law Enforcement Naloxone Project announced Friday will provide participating law enforcement agencies with kits first responders can use to administer a counteractive overdose drug.

The Monongalia County Sheriff’s Department, Morgantown police and West Virginia University police are taking advantage of the effort.

The drug Naloxone is used to reverse the effects of opiate and opioid drug overdoses. So far in West Virginia, police in at least Kanawha County have used similar kits.

“Since the beginning of the kits around the September/October timeframe, there have been at least five utilizations of those, and that’s with the very small number of kits that are even out on the street right now,” said Morgantown Police Chief Ed Preston

The kits could save patients suffering from opiate and opioid drug overdoses. The Injury Control Research Center of WVU is providing the kits free to police agencies and the drug will be provided through an on-campus pharmacy. The departments still use their own funds to pay for the prescription.

“What these agencies are using is the money we have taken off of drug dealers to now help our society for people who help drug addictions,” said Monongalia County Sheriff Al Kisner.

The free WVU project kits include two atomizers, informational booklet, instructions to supplement the formal training, a form for reporting when the Naloxone was used and gloves to protect the officer while administering the medicine.

“I think it’s important to look at this as a community effort. That’s how we all solve problems is working together. So, I’m proud to be a part of it,” said WVU Police Chief Bob Roberts. “We hope to never have to use these kits but if we can save a life then it’s important to have that.”

For the WVU department, the kits will be on hand in police cruisers around campus. “We’re hoping that it’ll do two things. One it gives us a tool to help people who have overdosed but, more importantly, I think that it’ll open up the discussions to get people engaged on how we prevent this,” Roberts added.

“I hope that it’s something that each and every county takes advantage of because we all know this is an epidemic. If we don’t address it we’re going to have more people who are going to end up dead and that’s not what we want to see happening. We don’t want to see it in our community, and we don’t want to see it in anybody else’s community,” said Kisner.

The project is not only for departments in Monongalia County but university health sciences officials encourage other departments in West Virginia to get involved. “This is not a single person problem, this is a collaborative effort. We are certainly committed to work with all folks who would be interested in moving forward with this effort,” said Dr. Bill Ramsey, WVU Health Sciences representative.

WVU’s David and Jo Ann Shaw Center for Simulation Training and Education for Patient Safety (WVSTEPS) has already trained representatives from each of the local police departments so they can train other officers in their departments.

“Over the past several months we’ve been developing protocols training trainers in order to outfit officers on the street and get them the training in order to use the Naloxone,” Preston said. “Our next step is to actually train the officers and to acquire the active ingredients for those kits in order to put them on the street. So the next several weeks they’ll be rolling out between all of the law enforcement agencies in the county.”

Legislators passed Senate Bill 335 into law last session to give first responders the authority to dispense Naloxone.

“They’re an immediate first aid action step to counteract the effects of opiods whether they be prescription pills or heroin itself.” said Preston.





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