Starting May 13 the province has announced that it will be providing medicine used to reverse opioid overdoses for free and without a prescription to Albertans at risk of overdose.
Naloxone kits – which can temporarily reverse overdoses of fentanyl and other opiods – can now be provided by pharmacies without a prescription, the NDP government announced Wednesday.
The move comes in response to the fentanyl epidemic which the Alberta Health Minister Brandy Payne said has already caused the deaths of 69 Albertans in 2016 and 274 deaths associated with the drug in 2015.
“Our hope is that removing the prescription requirement will encourage more people to access these potentially life-saving kits,” Payne said.
The kits are free of charge and are available to any Albertan who is at risk of overdosing on fentanyl or other opioids, such as heroin or prescription opiates like oxycontin.
Riverside Value Drug Mart pharmacist Ray Ainscough agrees with the move and said naloxone kits have been available at Riverside since they were first approved as prescription medicine.
“It’s definitely needed with the rise of fentanyl use,” Ainscough said. It’s sad that we have to have it but it’s something that can save lives.”
Naloxone was changed from a Schedule 1 drug, which requires a physician’s prescription, to Schedule 2, which only requires consultation with a pharmacist to determine whether the patient requires the kit.
The kits may also be provided by patient’s agents, such as friends and family, for loved ones at risk.
Ainscough said the move of providing kits for free opens access to naloxone to addicts who may otherwise not be willing to purchase the live-saving kits.
“If people pay for them, would they get it? It has to be done – the risk of death with fentanyl is extremely high.”
Alberta is the second province in Canada to allow naloxone to be provided without a prescription.
The province is also providing $3 million to Alberta Health Services to support the Opioid Dependency Treatment Plan Strategy, a three-year project that will expand counseling services and access to suboxone and methadone treatment; and increase of 20 per cent from the number currently being treated at existing AHS clinics, a government release said.
