Project Lazarus

Project Lazarus is a pilot program in Wilkes County, NC, to provide intranasal naloxone to patients at risk of opiate overdose. Naloxone is administered to reverse the CNS depressant effects of opiates. The pilot program will provide free naloxone kits to health care providers, who can then provide them to high risk patients and families, to use in the event of opiate poisoning. To read more about the project and the data supporting it, click on this link.

http://www.ncmedboard.org/Clients/NCBOM/Public/PublicMedia/lazarus.pdf

Of the people I know who lost a family member to opiate toxicity, including oxycontin, methadone and fentanyl, having a naloxone kit would have been useless, because they did not appreciate at the time that the family member was dying. Respiratory depression occurs over time. Families report that the person was sleepy, breathing heavily and snoring for several hours before he was found dead. The families thought nothing was wrong, and they did not intervene. For each family I know who lost a son or father to methadone overdose, they had plenty of time to call EMS, had they only known they were witnessing respiratory depression. But they didn't know, so they didn't call. Education and informed consent, it seems to me, will go a long way toward preventing unintentional deaths from methadone and other opiates. Naloxone is not a bad idea. But the education that is sure to come to the patients who are given the naloxone is what we really need.