St. John Ambulance has, it says, at the request of Health Canada, partnered with the Canadian Red Cross and the ACT Foundation in a three year initiative to combat the opioid poisoning crisis.

Kevin McGowan with St. John Ambulance says since January they have provided 78 courses to homeless shelters and other support organizations across Canada teaching over 750 people and they’ve distributed 2060 nasal Naloxone kits.  Of those, in Saskatchewan, they’ve trained 112 people at various shelters and related organizations and distributed about 400 Naloxone kits across the province with about a third going to the Saskatoon area.

McGowan says the partnership is aimed at increasing the survival rate of a person experiencing opioid poisoning, “We’re looking at about 10 to 12,000 kits in the homeless sector program and the larger program will have 30 to 40,000 kits as well, to be distributed across the country.”

The larger program won’t be just focused on homeless shelters and other support organizations, but will be focused on underserved communities which can include the remote or northern communities but McGowan says is actually broader than geography, “The construction industry for example as an underserved community because there’s a lot of young men working in construction for example and the statistics say who are using opioids. And they’re at risk of having an overdose so having a Naloxone kit available for use by them, by their team, by their family would be really important. ”

The St. John Ambulance program will also provide community face-to-face and virtual training to underserved communities. Those who participate receive a free nasal Naloxone kit. There will be a free online course that you do at your own pace to learn about the stigma surrounding opioid use, how to manage a poisoning situation, and how to take care of your own mental health after witnessing opioid poisoning. Those individuals will also have access to a Naloxone kit.

And the approximately 500,000 people who take St. John Ambulance public and corporate courses which deliver things like the standard First Aid and Emergency First Aid will have instruction in an expanded Opioid Poisoning Awareness section.