Despite the belief from the state's top health official that Narcan should be more available in public places to help fight opioid and heroin problems, Evansville public school officials said they are not pursuing a way to get the opiate overdose reversal drug into schools.
However, a district spokesman made assurances that it is a topic school officials continue to monitor.
Dr. Jerome Adams, Indiana's health commissioner, made the comment about expanding Narcan's availability during a wide-ranging interview with the Courier & Press earlier this month. While he said the most immediate need for Narcan is to get the opioid overdose reversal drug in the hands of more first responders and friends and family members, he encouraged all entities to consider stocking Narcan.
"Similar to how we put defibrillators everywhere now, we need to make sure Narcan is available everywhere because you never know where (an overdose) could occur," he said. "Someone could be overdosing in the parking lot of the building you’re in right now."
The antidote is also known under the generic name naloxone. Adams sidestepped an answer when specifically asked if all school districts should take advantage of a program that allows every high school in the country to get a Narcan kit. But he encouraged every community to at least consider the idea of putting the antidote in schools, especially considering the number of overdose deaths Vanderburgh County has seen this year blamed on heroin.
“I think it’s a conversation that every community and school district needs to have locally in terms of where the best place is to carry (Narcan)," Adams said. "But if people are dying, if people are overdosing, then we need to do everything we can to prevent it."
And overdoses are certainly happening in Evansville, though the youngest person to die in Vanderburgh County so far this year has been 24, according to coroner office statistics.
The Evansville Police Department recently got about 300 Narcan kits for free, thanks to an Indianapolis group called Overdose Lifeline. That group was started by a Central Indiana mother whose 20-year-old son died after overdosing on heroin. Grants from the Indiana Attorney General's Office supports that group.
Before getting the donation, only a few Evansville officers carried Narcan with them.
Henderson County school officials recently told The Gleaner newspaper that they were at least discussing taking advantage of the program earlier this fall. That initiative is called the Narcan Nasal Spray High School Program, and is being offered through the manufacturer of the spray, Adapt Pharma, as well as the Clinton Foundation. The initiative was announced in January.
According to an Adapt Pharma spokesman earlier this month, only seven schools in Indiana have taken advantage of the program, which remains open to districts. That spokesman, Thomas Duddy, declined to disclose which schools.
Currently, Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp., is not looking to join that short list. Henderson officials are still evaluating whether they want to pursue Narcan kits.
Repeating the district's stance on the issue from earlier this year, EVSC spokesman Jason Woebkenberg said on Friday that the district has decided that Narcan will not be stocked in schools.
"We're still at that same point where we were earlier this fall," he said. "As of now, we have made the decision not to keep Narcan in our schools. If we suspected an opiate overdose we would immediately call 911 and allow the folks who are trained medically to make the decision on the best way to respond."
However, Woebkenberg said figuring out the best practices in case of a drug overdose "absolutely" continues to be a topic evaluated by district officials with regular input from physicians. He noted that if the decision is ever made to keep Narcan in schools, people would have to be properly trained as well.
"Getting the drug and having it on hand in the nurses office would be the simple part; it's making sure that appropriate people are trained correctly," he said.
Amanda Eller, a spokeswoman for state superintendent-elect Jennifer McCormick, said whether to have Narcan in schools should be a local decision, but added that "we will definitely keep an eye on this discussion."
The executive director of at least one state education group hopes to see more schools get Narcan. J.T. Coopman, who heads the Indiana Association of Public School Superintendents, said he "unfortunately feels like that (Narcan) is something we should have available for our school nurses (to be) trained in.
"It's unfortunate that we'd have to have that, but I'd rather have that available and have a student alive than dead," he said.
Coopman made his comments on behalf the association, though he acknowledged that the conversation about Narcan in schools had not come up in his organization's discussions. He also was not aware of the Adapt Pharma program until being approached by the Courier & Press.