By K.C. Myers
Cape Cod Times
BARNSTABLE, Mass. — After months of plowing through red tape, all police departments on Cape Cod will finally be able to carry the opiate overdose reversal drug Narcan.
“We said this is a no-brainer,” Barnstable County Sheriff James Cummings said Friday as he passed out about 200 doses of Narcan to 15 police departments from one of his department’s offices in the Barnstable County court complex.
Under memorandums of understanding with the police departments, officers in every town may begin administering the medication immediately, Cummings said.
“We’ve trained all our officers and we’re ready to go,” said Yarmouth Lt. Kevin Lennon.
Dr. Steven Descoteaux, medical director of the Barnstable County Correctional Facility, will act as the medical overseer for the Narcan program for the Cape police departments. He helped train the officers and will review the reports on the use of the medicine, he said. Narcan is the brand name for naloxone.
Although police and prosecutors normally deal with interdiction of the drug flow, Narcan is one way that the police, as first responders, also can save lives, Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe said.
When regulations became sticky, O’Keefe helped find a way for law enforcement officials to meet the demands of state Department of Public Health rules.
O’Keefe’s and Cummings’ departments split the $5,000 cost to buy the Narcan kits for the police.
“I’m thrilled to see this finally happening,” said Donna Beers, a Bourne mother who had to give her son a Narcan dose from a kit she keeps in her purse after Bourne police told her they were not able to do it.
On Feb. 26, she got a call from her son’s friend. He told her that her son, whom she did not want to name, had overdosed in a car. The friend had pulled into a Bourne gas station, where he had seen some police cruisers.
Beers grabbed her Narcan kit and met them.
“When I got there, the police were doing CPR,” Beers said.
She fumbled to assemble the Narcan kit and asked the police for help. They said they were not allowed to assist her.
“There is not a day that goes by that I don’t remember that day,” Beers said. “It must have been hard to be in that position. Most people want to help when they can. ... I guess they were stuck between a rock and a hard place. But it’s hard to understand how they were not able to help me.”
Now they can. But getting to this point has not been a smooth process.
Cape Cod Times videos: Narcan Distribution
Until recently state regulations have prevented police officers, who typically arrive before ambulance crews to serious 911 calls, from administering the life-saving medication. Seconds count before brain damage or death occurs in an overdose situation.
These regulations have persisted even though for years, state-licensed educators have been training members of the general public, often relatives or friends of drug users, on how to administer the medication. It is a nasal mist, not a needle, and is simple to administer with no side effects, Descoteaux said.
The drug has reversed thousands of opiate overdoses nationwide.
In March, Gov. Deval Patrick declared opiate addiction a public health emergency. Along with allocating $20 million toward drug treatment and prevention, the declaration was supposed to expedite the regulatory process by which police could begin carrying Narcan. Quincy police have reversed more than 200 overdoses since 2010, when they began carrying Narcan as part of a state pilot program.
But even with the emergency declaration, the Department of Public Health regulations remained a barrier on Cape Cod for several months.
The department requires that police get a memorandum of understanding with a hospital, ambulance service or medical doctor to oversee the Narcan program.
Cape Cod Healthcare, which operates both Cape hospitals, refused to do this.
“Hospitals have no unilateral responsibility to provide such training, and the police or any other agency interested in being trained are free to contract with any willing and appropriately trained physician to accomplish that task,” Cape Cod Healthcare officials stated in an email.
The Cape & Islands Emergency Medical Services System Inc. also refused, saying it was illegal to distribute prescription drugs from the ambulance supply.
Finally, during the summer, Cummings offered up the jail’s medical director to act as countywide overseer of the police’s naloxone program.
Descoteaux said it was a lot of work at first to set up the training and figure out details. But now, it should not be difficult to keep up with, he said.
One complicating factor, he said, was separating the duties of the police from responsibilities of the emergency medical technicians and paramedics.
People revived from an overdose will be sick, possibly combative and may want to go out and use again, Descoteaux said.
Ambulance crews have been dealing with this tricky problem for years, trying to get those who overdosed to a hospital for further treatment, Descoteaux said. He said he wanted that aftercare to remain in the hands of the ambulance crews.
While Friday’s announcement begins the process to distribute Narcan to all departments, three police agencies have not waited for all the regulations to be finalized.
Provincetown, Falmouth and Mashpee police started carrying Narcan kits this past spring.
In Provincetown, police began using Narcan in March with the help of the AIDS Support Group of Cape Cod serving as medical director.
Mashpee and Falmouth pressed ahead with the program after being assured by O’Keefe that he would back them up and their departments would be legally protected.
Mashpee police have been able to reverse one overdose since using Narcan, according to Capt. Scott Carline.
Although the Provincetown police have not had the opportunity to reverse an overdose, they have been ready to do so for six months, said Acting Police Chief James Golden.
“We owe a debt of gratitude to the AIDS Support Group,” Golden said. “It was one less thing I didn’t have to lose sleep about.”
Falmouth police have not had to reverse an overdose since they began offering Narcan to officers in May. But Chief Edward Dunne said they wanted to be sure they would be able to save a life if they had the opportunity.
He allowed this even though the issue of medical director had not been finalized.
“I thought, what’s the worst that can happen? Someone will sue me for saving a life,” Dunne said.
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©2014 the Cape Cod Times (Hyannis, Mass.)