The Chatham-Kent Public Health Unit and the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance are teaming up in a joint effort to prevent opioid overdoses.
"The Health Alliance will be able to now train anybody at risk of opioid overdose, or their friends or family, to administer Naloxone, nasal Naloxone," said Public Health Nurse Sonya Russchen.
Russchen added that the training doesn't take very long, and then they are given a take-home Naloxone kit.
"Any client at risk, or any friends or family that are at emerg, it's basically five-minute training. I've trained the hospital to be able to do this, and they complete the training and they send a kit home the person, like I said, within five minutes," she said.
"I've really worked to streamline the process so the nurses in emerg, and as well as our nurses here, are able to complete the training in an effective manner, where we review everything we need to do," said Russchen. "But also not take too much time, just to make it more user-friendly."
The new partnership is through the Ontario Naloxone Program and is a way to make sure there are more Naloxone kits out in the community.
"We want them to be accessible in the community to anybody at risk of overdose to prevent death, obviously," said Russchen. "So this is just another way, they see these people at risk all the time, it's just another way to increase access in the community."
The emergency departments in Chatham and Wallaceburg will start offering the training to clients at risk or their family, starting Monday, April 1.