By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
More than 760,000 Americans have died of opioid overdoses since 1999, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. That makes the issue not an elephant in the room but something that requires action. Monday night, the USD 428 Board of Education approved carrying the drug Narcan at Great Bend High School and Great Bend Middle School as an emergency option in the event of an opioid overdose.
"We just want to have this option as just a precaution in our secondary buildings, just in case," said Superintendent Khris Thexton. "It's one of those that, I'd rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it."
The policy presented at Monday's meeting mirrors that of many school districts around the state. GBHS Nurse Emily Young did much of the research to bring the drug to the district, and Dr. Jonathan Pike provided the order to make it possible.
"In Kansas, the state nursing board said they would not recommend their nurses give this medication unless there was a doctor's order, and Dr. Pike has issued such an order for our district," Thexton said. "He was happy to do so and thought it was a great idea."
Board member Chad Burroughs works for the Great Bend Fire Department and said staff there will help train the district on Narcan use, including what happens once the drug is administered.
"When they do come out of an opioid overdose, it's like waking up the Incredible Hulk," he said. "There will be some restraining, more than likely, just to protect the student from hurting himself as well as hurting anybody else. We just want to train, hand-in-hand, with this administration and the school nurses to make sure they know what we're going to do and we know what they're going to do before we get there."
Thexton stressed that all medical emergencies will first be reported to 9-1-1, and that using Narcan is only a last resort. Board President Jacquie likened using the drug to using an EpiPen on a patient suffering from anaphylaxis. There would be no side effects if Narcan was administered to a patient suffering from non-opiod-related respiratory distress.
Narcan quickly reverses an overdose by blocking the effects of opioids. The Centers for Disease Control reports that nearly 50,000 people died from opioid overdose in 2019, and in 40 percent of those cases, someone else was present. One study indicates opioid-related deaths dropped by as many as 14 percent in states that have enacted Narcan access laws.