Opioid overdose prevention training: Research leading to advocacy

Internationally, there are over 200 Take Home Naloxone (THN) programs that provide opioid overdose prevention education and supply of naloxone, the antidote to an opioid overdose. However, prior to our project, it was fairly difficult for consumers to access these programs or where there was an intervention, no medication was supplied.

Staff in Metro North Health navigated our way to obtaining permission to supply naloxone and deliver opioid overdose prevention interventions (or THN for short) to consumers of alcohol and drug services. We trained all nurses within 3 large outpatient opioid treatment centres (some of the largest in treatment clinics in Australia) to be able to deliver the intervention. And across a pilot period during COVID-19, we were able to deliver 100 life-saving interventions to our consumers. This resulted in 4 lives saved during the pilot period.