Mariebeth Kilbride, Senior Officer for Drug Death Prevention at Scottish Drugs Forum, delivered overdose awareness training to our homelessness charity, including the administration of life-saving anti-overdose drug Naloxone.
Naloxone is a fast-acting medication used to temporarily reverse the effects of opioid overdoses, by rapidly reversing the life-threatening effects and restoring normal breathing.
In addition to carrying Naloxone on the charity’s vans and in its shops in Hamiltonhill and Partick, Emmaus Glasgow also carries the anti-overdose drug at its soup kitchen on Cadogan Street in the city.
“I don’t think that it happens very often that we train the residents in services. We are very frequently called in to talk to staff, but the [Emmaus] residents are very frequently out and about in the community. They are ideally placed to respond. It’s a community response to a community problem. Drug overdoses in Scotland are so widespread you can’t silo it off, into one particular area of the community. Anyone could witness an overdose in Scotland at any time: on public transport, in the city centres; we know these things are happening frequently.
“It breaks my heart every time the figures come out every year that we haven’t been able to affect huge amounts of change to drugs related deaths. What we do have is a really contaminated drug supply at the moment. We are beginning to see synthetic opioids contaminating the heroin supply contaminating the benzodiazepines supply. While we’ve got a contaminated drug supply, it’s going to be difficult to avoid these people’s deaths, because people don’t know what they’re taking. There’s no quality control in drugs.
Naloxone is everybody’s business
“Drug addiction doesn’t cause homelessness, but experiencing homelessness can make you at a much higher risk of developing drug addiction because of the multiple issues people are facing and what a difficult time it is for folk. And what we know in Scotland is that the number one cause of death for people experiencing homelessness, is a drug-related death. So, it’s a key area of working, to work together with homelessness services, which are very frequently not staffed as medical services, but are very frequently responding to overdoses. There’s definitely something around staffing levels and access to training, which is why it’s very important that we’re doing this here at Emmaus today, because Naloxone is everybody’s business. Anyone can suffer an overdose, and anyone can be affected by a drug issue.
“There are two different types of Naloxone. One that goes into the muscle and a nasal spray as well. What we’ve found that some people would prefer to use the injection, and some people would prefer to use the nasal spray. No one is better than the other, so long as Naloxone is given, it doesn’t matter how.
Preventing drugs overdoses in Scotland
“It’s a really complicated issue. I wish there was one single thing that we could do that would make a big difference. From my side of work, I think that having Naloxone out in community is absolutely essential. I think training more people in the community how to how use Naloxone and increasing the administration of Naloxone by members of the public whenever they witness an overdose would very much help, but I also think that a lot of the issues people are facing are systemic. We know that poverty drives drug use and therefore drug-related deaths, and we know people who use drugs have significant issues accessing both mental and physical health services for themselves. We see with people who have passed away particular problems with physical health and particular problems with mental health that have never been addressed. So, we need a consolidated approach for people.
“I think things have got better since the MAT standards came in, the Medication Assisted Treatment standards. It’s a set of standards that allow people from all areas in Scotland to get the same level of treatment no matter where they were and one of key issues around that was allowing people to substitute prescribing of opiates on the same day and being given more of a choice about what medications are used and how the support is structured. I think that has made a bit of a difference.
“There’s another while area around near-fatal overdoses, overdoses they survive, these people are at a high risk of a drug related death in the future. So, there’s an opportunity for intervention among people who survive overdoses to try to get them linked into treatment to get them better health treatment, better mental health support and social support, benefits and housing etc. We know housing is a big issue for people.
Get involved in preventing drug-related deaths
“This is a community response that will only affect drug related deaths if everyone gets involved. We have to stop seeing drugs and drug-related issues as siloed conversation only for certain people. It’s a health issue that affects so many families in Scotland that we all need to do our part to affect change.”
To find out more and receive Naloxone training, visit https://www.stopthedeaths.com/. You can find out how to administer Naloxone and how to get your anti-overdose kit.