U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., sat in on a drug overdose training session in Bluefield on Tuesday, March 22 to help promote recently introduced federal legislation aimed at helping stem the national opioid drug epidemic.
Capito attended a training session with the Bluefield Rescue Squad, where she watched how the opioid-reversing drug Naloxone is administered. The drug can reverse the effects of an overdose of heroin or other opium-based drugs.
"We must fight the terrible opioid epidemic on all fronts, including preventing overdose deaths," Capitol said. "I recently introduced legislation that will help save lives, better equip our health care professionals who are treating overdoses, and give West Virginians suffering from addiction a second chance.
"The Bluefield Rescue Squad’s Naloxone demonstration today was extremely insightful and reinforced the need for legislation like the Co-prescribing Saves Lives Act," Capito said." I want to thank everyone at the Bluefield Rescue Squad for hosting this event today, and for keeping the Bluefield community safe.”
Capito and U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, D-Va., recently introduced the act, which was just passed by the senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. The bill would require the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Secretary of Defense and Secretary of Veterans Affairs to come up with protocols for having doctors co-prescribe Naloxone along with opioid medications at federal health settings, including VA hospitals, DOD hospitals, Indian health service facilities and federally qualified health centers.
Heroin and opioid overdoses kill about 25,000 Americans every year. Naloxone has reversed the affects of more than 26,000 overdoses from 1996 to 2014, Capito said.
The Co-prescribing Saves Lives Act is on its way to the U.S. Senate for a full vote.