By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
Nearly a million Americans have died of opioid overdoses since 1999, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Public entities, including schools, are making decisions on how to react to possible opioid overdoses. Monday night, the USD 431 Hoisington Board of Education opted to keep Narcan out of its buildings. Board Member Jessica Baze laid out a reason for not carrying the medication.
"If it was my opinion, I would say not to carry it because we don't have a nurse in every building," Baze said. "We're going to have a lot of people making judgment calls and assessing a situation that aren't trained to assess a situation."
Narcan is a brand of the medication naxolone, an opioid antagonist that binds to opioid receptors and reverses and blocks effects of the drug. The Food and Drug Administration has stated naxolone will generally not have any effect or cause additional harm if administered to someone having a medical emergency other than an opioid overdose.
Superintendent Patrick Crowdis cited proximity to a hospital and EMS services as another reason against carrying the drug.
"If a student is unconscious, we're probably calling 911 at that point in time anyway," he said. "Then the trained professionals would have the opportunity to make that judgment call at that point in time as opposed to those of us that would get like a 30-minute training for something we don't deal with on a daily basis."
Crowdis will forward an addendum to policy regarding the matter to the Kansas Association of School Boards. The board will revisit the policy issue in September.