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Police officers in the city of Vilnius are among the first in Europe to be prepared to provide emergency care to people who have suffered an opioid overdose. At the initiative of the Republican Center for Addictive Diseases, the Vilnius City Municipality and the Second Vilnius City Police Station, a drug that saved lives reached the police patrols and the first group of officers has already been trained.
When a person is unconscious, they no longer breathe, waiting for an ambulance, every minute is precious.
“We trained the first 15 officers, each participant was given a medicine. It is sprayed on the nose, making it quick and easy to use. The drug itself is safe, it is used in the case of an overdose of opioids such as heroin or fentanyl, when human life is in danger: the person is unconscious, no longer breathing.
Photo from Vilnius LSC / Preparation used as an antidote to opioids
In this case, waiting for an ambulance costs every minute. A police officer on the scene can conduct rescue operations as instructed by the dispatcher and spray the medication into the nose. If everything is done on time, such a simple action is enough to save a person’s life, ”Morgana Danielė, a public relations specialist with the Republican Center for Addictive Diseases (PLC), said in a police report on the innovation.
The specialist was satisfied that the city of Vilnius is among the first in Europe to implement this initiative.
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“We will train and provide medicines to another 85 Vilnius city officials. Apart from us, only Scotland and Wales have such cooperation between health and law enforcement across Europe today that they rushed to implement it last year, ”said a spokeswoman for PLC.
The high number of drug-related deaths is a long-standing problem in Estonia, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Lithuania. Most opioid antidotes in these and other European countries, although not injectable but injectable, are administered free of charge to opioid users and their families.
The Addiction Center has been offering this service free of charge and anonymously since 2016. At the end of the year, and after the reform of the addiction centers, the service was also provided in the centre’s branches in Kaunas, Klaipėda, Šiauliai and Panevėžys. The service has paid off: in four years of service provision, the number of deaths in Lithuania has almost halved, from 115 overdose deaths in 2015 to 57 such cases in 2019.
“The problem that remains is that the center does not reach drug users who have not yet applied for treatment. There is also a lack of information: family members of addicted people have rarely heard of access to life-saving medicine and counseling.
Overdose prevention, as in other European countries, must be actively implemented by non-governmental organizations, thus alleviating the burden on health centers, but this is hampered by legal barriers that have not yet been removed. Furthermore, there is an urgent need to follow the example of Estonia and provide this service to those who leave prison, as this is when the risk of overdose is greatest, ”says Danielle. to reduce the damage caused.
The opioid antidote has been used in medicine for fifty years, and thirty of it is used to treat opioid addicts.
The opioid antidote has been used in medicine for half a century.
The aerosol form was registered in the European Union two years ago and is likely to increase the availability of life-saving drugs across Europe. There are about 10,000 injecting drug users in Lithuania.
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