By Lauren Wanko
Correspondent
Hospital executives and the prosecutors from both Monmouth and Ocean counties this morning stood side by side to announce a new partnership.
“The Meridian, Barnabas and Center State Health Care Systems have graciously agreed to provide first responding police departments with replacement naxolone kits free of charge to police officers,” said Christopher Gramiccioni, Acting Monmouth County Prosecutor.
Narcan, or naloxone, is a medication that temporarily reverses the effects of a narcotic overdose. First responding law enforcement officers in both counties have been administering the nasal spray since last year to combat the deadly heroin and prescription opiates overdose epidemic.
“Monmouth County tends to average roughly 70 heroin or opiates related deaths annually and that’s an average that we’ve sustained over the past five years. Our counties combined have deployed naxlone nearly 470 times since June of 2014 and even better we were able to save victims from fatal overdoses after administering this drug in roughly 90 percent of those cases,” said Gramiccioni.
“This now arms the law enforcement to have 24 hours a day naxolone that can save a life. I know our statistics here in Ocean County is that we have 50 overdose deaths today as we speak and we also have sprayed people since Jan. 1 142 times,” said Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph Coronato.
After officers administer Narcan, they follow the patient to the hospital. Now law enforcement will hand in the empty syringe to the medical staff and fill out a receipt.
“From there the nurse manager will provide the officer with a new kit, a new syringe and nasal adapter and thereafter hospitals will forward copies of the collected receipts to each county’s prosecutor’s office for data collection,” Gramiccioni said.
Coronato says Narcan is only a temporary fix and it’s important to break the cycle of addiction. He says starts in the hospital, after the patient is stabilized, where a professional can try to work with that patient to convince them to enter into a detox facility and eventually a treatment plan. It’s something they’re already doing in Ocean County.
“Everybody who is sprayed with Narcan and sent to the hospital is now confronted but we need to drill down. It’s a heavy lift, it’s the first of its kind. Nobody else in the country is doing it and what we’re trying to do is develop a pilot program, make it work so that it can then be mirrored in other counties,” Coronato said.
Barnabas Health Institute for Prevention’s Connie Green, along with other hospital executives, is applying for a state grant that would be used to hire professionals to work with overdose patients who had been given Narcan and help connect them to detox and treatment.
“If we don’t get them into treatment, the Narcan puts the individual in withdrawal so when they’re discharged from the hospital what are they looking for is the next hit,” Green said.
The new law enforcement-hospital partnership starts today.