A re-enactment executed Monday showed just how important quick-thinking and readily available medications are in drug overdose situations for staff at the Lethbridge Shelter & Resource Centre.
“An alarm goes off and so everybody knows when that cupboard is open, there’s an emergency,” Lethbridge Shelter & Resource Centre manager Collette Ryostock said. “Everybody kind of springs into action and has a role to play–from calling EMS to really attending to the overdose. And so they just take the defibrillator and naloxone kit and head down into the area and they do whatever it takes.”
The shelter has been working alongside ARCHES, training in overdose prevention recognition and response.
“We’ve had a long-standing partnership, so when we started to recognize the opioid epidemic years ago, and introduced the take-home naloxone program, the shelter didn’t hesitate to get trained in naloxone and administration,” ARCHES managing director Stacey Bourque said.
ARCHES provides the shelter with naloxone kits and collects data on usage, along with the number of overdoses reversed at the shelter.
Bourque says the work being done by shelter staff is admirable.
“They have a very difficult job.”
“A lot of overdoses occur in peoples’ homes and for many people, this is their home.”
Sometimes reversing as many as five overdoses in one day, shelter workers say it affects them emotionally, but they do it to help.
“Being from the Blood Reserve, it is a little bit tough seeing your relations out there, going through what it is that they’re going through,” Cherie Shot Both Sides said. “But it’s just responding to each and every single one of them as EMS and the fire department arrive.”
The hope is that moving forward, these life-saving skills won’t have to be put into practice nearly as often.
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