Project Lazarus in the Huffington Post

In a nice article in the Huffington Post, Project Lazarus, located in Wilkes County, NC, was highlighted as an example of how a community can take action to prevent drug overdose deaths. Please check it out at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/05/project-lazarus_n_4889620.html?1394071210

Many people think Project Lazarus provides naloxone kits to reverse overdoses, and this is true, but they do much more than that. Project Lazarus has sponsored educational programs for doctors to learn to be more cautious when prescribing opioids, has sponsored medication take back days where old prescription meds can safely be disposed, and has worked with agencies and organizations across North Carolina and the nation to better inform doctors, law enforcement, and elected officials about what works to prevent drug overdose deaths.

Project Lazarus helped pass a Good Samaritan law North Carolina (see my post of April 20, 2013). Under this new law, a person who calls 911 to save another person’s life – or their own – won’t be prosecuted for minor drug possession, since they were trying to do the right thing and save a life by calling 911.

The Huffington Post article describes how the opioid overdose death rate has been falling in Wilkes County, while the overdose death rate in other parts of the country has been steadily rising. They credit Project Lazarus for this reduction in overdose deaths.

While I’m sure Project Lazarus has played a huge role in reducing overdose deaths not only in Wilkes County and the state of North Carolina, other factors have helped. Being an opioid addiction treatment provider, of course I believe availability of addiction treatment reduced deaths too.

Project Lazarus also supported the opening of an opioid treatment program in 2011, Mountain Health Solutions. Started by Dr. Elizabeth Stanton, this program initially offered only buprenorphine. As it grew, it became obvious some patients needed methadone treatment, so option became available by late 2011. Mountain Health Solutions was eventually purchased by CRC Health in 2012, and has continued to grow. Located in a small town, we have nearly four hundred patients.

I am honored to be the medical director at this program. It’s one on the best programs I’ve seen, and we work hard to keep improving our quality of care. Our program has done outreach -particularly in the medical community- to try to reduce the stigma of medication-assisted treatment. If you read my blog, you know this can be both a joy and a challenge.

Initially, Project Lazarus paid for an intranasal naloxone kit for every patient entering our opioid treatment program. Now since our patient census has risen, Project Lazarus still pays half of the $50 cost of the kits. The opioid treatment program pays the other half, out of a $33 admission charge for new patients. I feel lucky to be able to partner with Project Lazarus, as I’ve seen these kits save lives.

I know of four occasions when a naloxone kit saved a person’s life. Three of these four times, that person saved wasn’t even in treatment for opioid addiction.

Most recently, a parent used a kit to reverse an opioid overdose in a child who accidently ingested the parent’s medication. The parent called 911 and while waiting for EMS to arrive, used one of the two vials in the kit. The child partially woke, and started breathing better. Then EMS arrived and took the child to the hospital. This child survived a potentially fatal overdose and is back to normal with no lasting damage, thanks in part to that naloxone kit and a parent who knew how to use it.

Naloxone kits can be obtained much more cheaply, but contain Narcan vials, a more dilute form of naloxone that is meant to be injected. Those kits, which cost a few dollars, contain a syringe and needle instead of the Project Lazarus kit for nasal administration. Trying to inject naloxone into a vein is technically much more difficult than spraying the more concentrated form of naloxone up into the nose.

And unfortunately, a kit containing a needle and syringe would meet resistance from the public. I can imagine all sorts of angry phone calls to our opioid treatment program: “My son came to you people to get off the needle and you GAVE him a needle and syringe??” Politically, the public would more likely oppose distribution of a naloxone kit with a needle than a kit for intranasal use.

Fifty dollars for an intranasal naloxone kit to save a life is a pittance in the overall picture. Some insurance companies will cover these kits, as will Medicaid, but most of our patients have no insurance. They pay for their buprenorphine/methadone treatment out of their own pocket. Fifty dollars is a big sum for these patients.

I am blessed to work for an opioid treatment program that gets financial help from Project Lazarus for these kits. And I am very blessed to work for a for-profit company, CRC Health, which is willing to bear half the cost of the kits, since this comes out of their profits. Most opioid treatment programs do charge patients an admission fee, but unlike Mountain Health Solutions, don’t put that money towards buying a naloxone kits for their patients.

This is an example of the success that can happen when agencies work together toward a common goal.