Primary care paramedics now being trained to use anti-opiate drug

Primary careparamedics in Toronto are now being trained to use an anti-opiate drug in a bid to reduce the number of overdose deaths in the city.

Naloxone is an opiate antidote that helps reverse the side effects of a drug overdose.

Paramedics also say the treatment will give them a significant advantage when it comes to responding to drug overdoses.

“No matter which level of paramedic is responding to a call, the main focal point is to keep the patient breathing,” said Toronto paramedic Dominic Wong.

During a drug overdose, a patient’s breathing usually slows, causing them to go into cardiac arrest. Naloxone will allow paramedics to prevent the patients from going into cardiac arrest, likely resulting in far fewer overdose-related deaths, said Clement Sun, medical director at Addiction Centre Toronto.

“You can now get to them before the cardiac arrest,” he said. “If you notice they’re not breathing, they’re unconscious, you can give them an injection and they will start breathing. And therefore you avoid the cardiac arrest. That’s a huge advantage.”

Toronto’s advanced care paramedics have been using Naloxone for to treat overdoses for the past 20 years. By Christmas, all primary care paramedics will also trained to administer the drug.

This story has been corrected to show that primary care paramedics are now being trained to use Naloxone; the anti-opiate kits are distributed by Toronto Public Health.