Hey mate how are you yeah good thanks that’s good how can i help you today um i’m just here wondering if i speak to someone about uh heroin overdose medication oh yes that’s what it’s called yeah so naloxone you’re thinking of yeah the is it the nasal spray stuff yeah that’s the one yeah so i’ve got david here today he’ll be able to have a chat to you around that
Oh okay yeah no right yeah and um what about the does it take long and how much does it cost no it only takes about 10 minutes and it’s absolutely free oh really yeah yeah so did you want me to grab david for you yeah play if i can see him today yeah yeah that’d be great awesome thank you that’s okay hey this is david our naloxone worker hi hi damian how you
Going so you’re here for naloxone training yeah the nasal spray yep that’s right yep come with me all right thank you you’re just in here thank you so damo you’d like to learn how to use naloxone to reverse opioid overdose um yeah i would my friends have been talking about it and that and um they told me to come into karma to find out some more well mate i’m
Really glad you came in today because you know that over a thousand australians die every year from opioid overdose so the more of this naloxone that we get out into the community the more lives can be saved yeah right okay well that’s a lot it’s astonishing a lot of life thousand people yeah but one thing i was wondering david is does it only work on heroin or
Does it work with on other drugs too okay so it works with other opioids so it will work through reverse overdoses for fentanyl and morphine and codeine and other opioids but it won’t work with other types of drugs okay cool so um if i were to give someone naloxone because i think they’ve overdosed on opiates but they actually have an overdose in opiates is it
Going to do them any damage so naloxone has no known side effects um apart from blocking the effects of opioids so if you give naloxone to someone who is not suffering from an opioid overdose it won’t do them any harm it won’t even affect them in any way at all okay cool that’s really handy to know what should i look out for if i think someone’s overdosed
Okay so the classic symptoms of opioid overdose are blue lips and pale waxy complexion um their breathing will often be very slow or shallow or sometimes completely absent um the person’s non-responsive you can’t wake them up and often they’ll be this gasping snoring noise deep in the back of their throat oh okay yeah i think i’ve seen people like that before
So often you’ll find somebody who has overdosed um will be slumped over even when they’re not overdosing this can be a risk because their windpipe can be pink shut like a bent hose make it very difficult for them to draw air into their lungs okay right so in that situation what would i do next okay so first thing to do lift up their head um so that their head
And torso are good and straight so that their windpipe is wide open so they’re able to draw air into their lungs you need to try and weight them get a response from them you can do this by calling their name or squeezing their shoulder tugging on their earlobe things like that okay so what about like putting them in a cold shower or um giving them coffee or
Even i’ve heard even giving them a saltwater people around no no these are all myths there are quite a lot of myths attached to how to respond to heroin and other opioid overdoses and feeding them coffee or putting them under a cold shower or throwing cold water over them or giving them a saline injection like you suggested or trying to frog march them around
The room they’re not going to help and they will often cause more heart than good naloxone is the best chance that you’ve got of bringing someone back if they’ve overdosed so if i can’t get a response from the person by squeezing their shoulder or calling out their name or shaking them gently like you’ve suggested what should i do then okay if you can’t get a
Response call triple o immediately don’t wait to see if i get better or straight away so i call triple zero what do i say okay tell the triple o operator that you’ve got someone who is not responsive and not breathing and ask for an ambulance okay so i ring them they answer i tell them i have a non-responsive person and they’re not breathing and i’d like an
Ambulance exactly so we recommend that you put your phone onto a speakerphone function so that your hands are free stay on the line until the triple o operator until the ambulance crew arrive okay and why why do i stay on the line okay so for two reasons one is that if you need to provide first aid to a person including cpr the triple o operator can advise you
The other thing is you can use a triple o operator to help guide the ambulance crew to your precise location oh okay nowadays and um so say i’ve got naloxone when do i use it you use it straight away as soon as you call triple o so this is intranasal naloxone here there are two devices in each pack and each device contains a single dose of naloxone okay so
That means does that mean it can only be used once exactly okay so to use it you peel open insert the tip gently up a person’s nostril and then press the trigger so once i’ve sprayed it into their nose is that all i do yes that’s it so the naloxone is absorbed through the mucous membrane so the person doesn’t need to be breathing for it to work and if i give
Them naloxone do do they actually wake up immediately uh so naloxone uh takes up to four minutes to be absorbed into the bloodstream so you need to give it a good four minutes to work okay no and after the four minutes if there’s no response from the person what do i do next so if the person is still unconscious and having difficulty breathing after four minutes
Give them a second dose okay sweet so in the meantime what else could i do okay so if it’s safe to do so you can put the person into a recovery position okay the recovery position is that the same one that you see on uh first aid videos yes that’s the one so to put someone in a recovery position if they’re lying on their back is you squat beside them fold their
Near side arm across their body and raise their knee side knee so that the knee forms an angle then roll them away from you never towards you always away from you and try and support if you can support their head and neck and put something under their head so that their necks good and straight while they’re lying there and you leave them in the recovery position
Until they actually recover or until the ambulance will arrive how long is the naloxone effective for those okay so the naloxone will start to wear off after about an hour or so and it’s very important if someone’s been brought back from an overdose using naloxone that you need to keep that person under observation because there is a risk as the naloxone wears
Off but they’ll become heavily intoxicated again and there’s even a risk that they can relapse into overdose what should i do with someone that’s recovered from an overdose okay well it’s generally recommended that they go along to the hospital with the ambulance crew um but if they don’t want to do that that is their choice okay cool well yeah i think i’ve got
That right well that’s it so before i send you home with some naloxone um just have a few questions just make sure that you’ve got the gist of this yep so naloxone is effective at reversing overdose for what um well from what i’ve just learned it’s um only effective for opiates that’s right for opioids what are the classic symptoms of opioid overdose ah okay one
Thing would be the shallow breathing very shallow breathing or maybe not breathing at all um pale waxy looking skin that’s right um blue lips yep and they may be hunched over and unresponsive yep and they may have a deep sort of gasping sort of steep snoring sound in there that’s right great work so uh what do you do when somebody overdoses well how would you
Respond firstly i’d try and get a response from the person and see if they responded yep if i had no luck getting a response i’d call triple zero immediately right yep um and if i had naloxone on hand i’d administer one dose of naloxone and place the person into the recovery position if it’s safe to do so yeah and make sure you stay with the person until the
Ambulance arrives can you tell me how naloxone is administered through nasal spray that’s correct yep and how long does it take before it starts having effect it can take up to four minutes to actually and how long before it starts to wear off well what you’ve told me today can take up to an hour um until it starts to wear off that’s right yep um so that’s it
For today uh time to give you some naloxone to take home with you would you like one or two pests um if it’s i’ll grab two takes if it’s possible okay no problem here you go all right nice thank you very much david and just remember if you ever need naloxone in the future we’ve always gotta hear it palmer you
Transcribed from video
CAHMA Naloxone Training Video By CAHMA