It’s been proven to be the most effective weapon in the fight to prevent deaths from opioid overdose, a major killer in Ontario.

Now the Middlesex-London Heath Unit wants anyone who gets an opioid prescription to get access to and counselling on naloxone, the medication that reverses the deadly effects of an overdose by restoring respiration.

The health unit board voted Thursday to make that recommendation to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario.

“When they go to the pharmacy to get their (opioid) prescription they’re getting the naloxone, so they have it ahead of time,” Shaya Dhinsa, a health unit manager who prepared a report on naloxone for the board, said Thursday.

The report outlines how naloxone has been a lifesaver for more than a dozen Londoners. The health unit and other agencies have distributed 163 naloxone kits since June 2014 and 13 people suffering overdoses were successfully resuscitated when naloxone was administered.

“That’s 13 people whose lives have been saved in a two-year period,” Dhinsa said.

In addition to kits given out to opioid users, Middlesex-London EMS crews administered 47 doses of naloxone last year and 31 doses to the end of October this year when responding to 911 calls for overdoses. Information on the number of patients aided by those naloxone treatments was not available.

Jay Loosley, supervisor of education with Middlesex-London EMS, said it’s not possible to quantify the number of people saved by naloxone treatments because crews also use other methods, like oxygen masks, to restore breathing.

“It buys them time. Naloxone usually increases their respiratory rate. It increases their chance of recovery.”

Naloxone is the last line of defence for users of opioids such as morphine, hydromorphone and fentanyl. Opioid abuse began ravaging London in the early 2000s, and by 2012, the city had the highest per-capita opioid use in Ontario.

Health officials across the country are mobilizing to fight the epidemic of opioid abuse. Federal Health Minister Jane Philpott and Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins are attending a two-day conference on the opioid crisis in Ottawa Friday and Saturday.

Philpott is expected to announce the creation of a system to track emergency department visits and overdose deaths across Canada.

In Middlesex-London, progress is being made to make naloxone more widely accessible, Dhinas said.

Last month the Ministry of Health allowed naloxone kits to be distributed to family and friends of people at risk of an opioid overdose.

In the past the kits were only available to those at risk of an overdose who were clients of needle exchange programs.

Naloxone has also been reclassified as an non-prescription drug that can be kept behind the counter of a pharmacy and dispensed for free to those at risk of an overdose or their friends or family.

Dhinas said it is much harder to make progress on opioid drugs sold illegally. But there are programs in London like the “Patch for Patch” plan that requires patients using the powerful opioid fentanyl to return the skin patch used to dispense the drug before they can get another prescription.

hdaniszewski@postmedia.com

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Opioid use

Between 2010 and 2014 prescriptions of opioids climbed 24 per cent.

21.7 million prescriptions for opioids dispensed in Canada last year.

Opioid misuse is the third leading cause of death in Ontario.