WAILUKU, Hawaii — Maui police have become the first officers in Hawaii to be equipped and trained to use a nasal spray that reverses the effects of an opioid overdose.
The U.S. surgeon general said the spray form of naloxone temporarily counteracts the effects of an overdose, namely slowed or stopped breathing, The Maui News reported Wednesday.
The surgeon general said the medication is a “safe antidote to a suspected overdose, and, when given in time, can save a life.”
The department was given 200 kits of the spray, worth $14,000, through a grant from the state Department of Health.
Officers received training early this month from Heather Lusk, executive director of the Community Health Outreach Work Project.
Opioids include pain relievers legally obtained by prescription, along with fentanyl, which is described as being 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine, along with heroin and others.
Maui Police Assistant Chief John Jakubczak said that officers do not see many opioid overdoses, but it’s good to have the extra tool available.
“What’s good about it, it’s there in case we need it. You never want to need something after you need it,” he said.
Lusk said the spray is as easy to use as Flonase, an allergy nasal spray. With just one spray in a nostril, a person usually responds from the naloxone in around 30 seconds, she said. But, within two minutes if there is no response, another spray can be given in the other nostril, she added. The kits are for one-time use.
No one can get high from the spray, she said.
Jakubczak and Lusk credited Molokai patrol officer Daniel Imakyure for pushing to make the spray available to the department.
Imakyure attended one of her training sessions on Oahu and wanted his department outfitted with the spray, Lusk said.
Kauai has received training for the naloxone spray, although does not yet have its officers supplied with it, Lusk said.
She was unsure of the status of other departments in the state.
The number of U.S. overdose deaths from prescription and illicit opioids doubled from 21,089 in 2010 to 42,249 in 2016, according to the surgeon general’s website.
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Information from: The Maui News, http://www.mauinews.com
Aloha Kakou,
Iatrogenic Disease means doctor induced, or caused. In this case America is suffering from a doctor induced epidemic of opiate addiction leading to both additional heroin addiction and a combination of opioids, fentanyl, and heroin overdoses, the originating source of which is doctor prescribed opioids, or doctor induced death.
There are many other deaths from doctor prescribed drugs as demonstrated by medical drug Ad warnings on TV.
More people are dying each year from the combination of medical drugs in a single year than were American soldiers killer in the Vietnam War in 10 years.
For patients suffering from pain, many of those could have gotten pain relief from alternative health practitioners that do not require any drugs in their methods of helping people. Why don’t medical doctors recognize their limitations and the lethality of their medical drug prescriptions and make the referrals that would would allow people to be restored to health than kept on extended and often lifetime of drug therapies.
We realize Ford dealers do not refer customers to Chevy or Toyota, but in these cases we are talking about humans who deserve health and do not deserve death from a medical treatment.
Several years ago Ralph Nader, a one time serious candidate for President, headed a 3 year study, wherein it was found that 375,000 Americans per year who were able to walk into hospitals looking for health care, were dead in 24 hours, from the combination of medical drugs and procedures including surgery. That is equal to 1,000 747 airplanes falling out of the sky and the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) doing nothing about it.
It’s certain those statistics still must be saddening for families, yet we do not hear of them, at least we are being warned of the ongoing dangers of medical drugs by news stories like this and TV medical drug ads’ warnings. Albeit my “happy actors”.
What is it in the apparent lacking of medical education that doctors hoard patients like they were gold, and fail to refer their patients for proper safe care when apparently their own medical care is not safe and is in too many cases deadly.
Are these announcements of overdose deaths a warning of the inadequacies of medical care?
Clearly the Disease Care System is not all what we have been led to believe is the Be All Do All for our health. They do have many limitations.
Their refusal as a profession to refuse to search for causes of disease instead of after the fact risky treatments, in the face of so many known causes, is a refusal based on stubbornness and apparent profit.
We need to put this disease system to light and show it in a comparison. The Colombian drug Cartel and the Mexican Drug Cartel are known to earn $Billions of dollars a year selling drugs to Americans. It includes ruined lives, singular and mass murders by their gangsters including in formerly peaceful cities just across the US border creating fear on both sides of the border, and of course overdoses.
In this comparison, the American Medical Drug Cartel (AMDC) earns $4 Trillions of dollars a year selling drugs and surgery to Americans often when a simple referral to an alternative health practitioner would provide an actual restoring of health safely and cheaper than our own country’s drug cartel (AMDC).
The entities in our countries drug cartel are like a four fingered glove, like the claws of a tiger: 1.) the Insurance Companies, 2.) Petroleum Based Chemical Pharmaceutical Companies, 3.) Hospitals, 4.) Doctors.
These 4 are intertwined only out of earlier need and convenience that has now grown into a financial monster and in what is now appearing to be in too many cases, reckless, as we see in the epidemic proportion of drug overdoses and prescription deaths. We have reached the point where people have Blind Faith in their doctors and do whatever they are told regardless of the serious chance and risk they are taking.
That is why teaching elementary school children through high school the Human Basic Sciences on an accumulating level of complexity and knowledge of Anatomy, Physiology, Histology, Biochemistry, and Nutrition, etc., would change the face and statistics of Health in America.
There are some common elements or activities of which sick and healthy people all do and which contribute to their sickness or health.
One of those activities is all people eat food, and too many sick people eat foods out of ignorance (lack of knowledge), foods known to contribute over a few or several decades, and even just years, to heart disease, stroke, cancers, obesity, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s; as well as many other sicknesses.
It is time for the hospitals and doctors to release accurate statistics as to how many people have how many and which diseases, what treatments and drugs were provided, how many died, how many were only managed while their disease continued, like a lifetime of insulin and not restored to health.
We should be provided the statistics on heart disease, vascular disease, cancers, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s; all known to be worsening in numbers of victims each year. All having known causes which are kept from the public, contributed to by the fact that without disease there is no need for disease care.
One does not have to die from disease, old age used to be a popular way to finish a life span. On Kauai we see this in many elderly people who live well into their 10th decade and some into their 11th decade, while others only achieve 5, 6, 7, and 8 decades, most of who, are on disease care drugs and surgery and other treatments kept quiet from us.
It is time that both Disease Care and Health Care become transparent, let’s openly see what is going on and who is offering what.
For starters watch the next TV ADVERTISEMENT,and just when they COULD SAY do this to prevent or remove the cause of your sickness, they always say their drug they are selling can give you relief, along with a list of side effects, often one of which is deadly.
Making America Great Again would be to have a Healthy nation, making a stronger nation, leading the world by example.
It is at the same time, time for a Health Care System that is based on known results without side effects, wherein people are restored to health and taught how to maintain and perpetuate their health for a purpose…Quality of Life and Optimal Longevity.
Mahalo,
Charles