N.B. medical students lobby government to fund overdose antidote naloxone

Medical students in New Brunswick are calling on the provincial governmentto providefree naloxone kits to those who need access to the life-saving antidote for opiate overdoses.

Naloxone, which can revive someone who has overdosed on opiates such as heroin, Dilaudid and fentanyl,is available at some pharmacies in New Brunswick for about $40.

This issomethingthat we've seen happen in other provinces like Nova Scotia and so we'd like tosee New Brunswick do the same.- Joseph Sanford, medical student

But medical students contend the cost is preventing individuals and community groups from having the kits on hand, saidJoseph Sanford, whois in his second year in Dalhousie University's New Brunswick medicine program.

"What we'd like to have is kits that are funded and paid for that communitymembers or IV drug users couldaccess," said Sanford,whois alsothe government affairs and advocacy committee senior representativewiththe Canadian Federation of Medical Students.

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"Theycould go into a pharmacy or they could be distributed [by] community organizations, like AIDS Saint John, that have expressed aninterest," he said.

"This issomethingthat we've seen happen in other provinces like Nova Scotia that's beensuccessfuland they've committed to doing that and so we'd like tosee New Brunswick do the same."

AIDSMonctonis calling fornaloxoneto be available to everyone from emergency shelter workers to taxi drivers.

Task force to make recommendations

The New Brunswick Department of Health says its task force on fentanyl is looking at whether to make naloxone more available and is expected to make recommendations.

"A provincial Interdepartmental Illicit Fentanyl Preparedness Task Group is in place to oversee the development and implementation of measures to prevent and respond to fentanyl overdoses," spokesperson Sarah Williams said in an email to CBC News.

"The task group is currently assessing effective interventions, their availability and use and will be providing recommendations on future expansion of naloxone to government when this analysis is completed."

Sanford said the medical students realize the government is looking for ways to "solve the problem," but in the meantime, free kits will "save lives."

The students met with MLAslast Friday to discuss the issue, he said.

"With the fentanyl crisis that's sweeping from west to east across the country we know that it's coming,"said Sanford. "We know that it's an issue that we're going to have to combat and we said, 'Well, we should be ready for it.'"

The studentsexpect more people in New Brunswick to turn to street drugs such asfentanyl,given the province's new prescription drug monitoring program.

And asfentanylbecomes more widely available, they expect more overdoses.

"What we've seen happen in Western Canada and in B.C. is truly tragic and it's something that we as medical students, if we can help prevent that from happening here in New Brunswickthrough lobbying government in asking for something like this, then that's what we wanted to do," said Sanford.