Nurses At Ocean City High School To Be Equipped With Heroin Antidote

OCEAN CITY, NJ — There will soon be a heroin antidote available at Ocean City High School.

The Ocean City School District’s Board of Education approved a proposed policy to allow the high school’s nurses to carry and use a heroin antidote, if needed, according to published reports.

School Physician Dr. Jerry Horowitz will prescribe the antidote, although it has not yet been decided which antidote he will use, according to the Ocean City Gazette.

Nurses at the Black Horse Pike Regional School District in Camden County have already been approved to prescribe Narcan/Naloxone, the most popular heroin antidote available on the market.

Police departments across the state began using Naloxone/Narcan, a heroin antidote previously only available to hospital staff, after legislators passed the Opioid Antidote and Overdose Prevention Act in 2013. The antidote reverses the effect of a heroin overdose.

The policy isn’t the result of anything that has happened specifically in Ocean City, but the district is being proactive with the opioid epidemic that has plagued Cape May County, according to ocnjdaily.com.

During a forum last year, Cape May County Prosecutor Robert L. Taylor said there has been a decline in heroin deaths since police began carry Narcan, according to the report. A total of 121 overdose victims have been saved in the last two years.

Patch file photo