Overdose kits meant to reduce deaths due to opioids

State officials plan to distribute 20,000 opioid overdose rescue kits to health care providers, emergency personnel, pharmacists and social workers in response to a growing substance abuse “crisis” in Hawaii.

Drug overdoses, which account for 23 percent of all fatal injuries locally, have been the state’s leading cause of injury-related deaths over the past decade, according to the state Health Department.

The state plans to expand access to the drug naloxone for “any person positioned to prevent an opioid-related drug overdose mortality,” Gov. David Ige’s office said in a statement Wednesday.

Prescription opioids are used as pain relievers but are highly addictive.

Government officials are developing a statewide plan to combat overdoses of opioids, which suppress the central nervous system and can halt breathing and shut down organs.

“Our objective is to get ahead of the opioid addiction crisis that’s a problem across the nation,” state Department of Health Director Ginny Pressler said at a news conference Wednesday. “The major focus that we have as we address the opioid crisis has to do with addressing it as a chronic disease … so that we can really treat it appropriately and get at the root causes of the addiction problem.”

Providers who used naloxone as part of a pilot program were able to prevent about 40 overdose deaths over the past six months, said Eddie Mersereau, DOH Alcohol and Drug Abuse Division chief. Naloxone blocks opioid receptors in the brain to reverse overdose symptoms.

The state was awarded about $11 million in federal grants this year to increase access to treatment for residents with opioid addiction and to ramp up prevention efforts that may include drug take-back programs at pharmacies statewide to prevent pills from circulating in the community.

Roughly 5,000 to 6,000 residents are treated for substance abuse annually, according to DOH, but anywhere from 75,000 to 100,000 others go untreated.

The number of deaths involving opioid pain relievers, including oxycontin, fentanyl and other synthetics — except heroin — has gone up and down over the past decade ranging from 43 to 64 deaths per year based on death certificate records from the Health Department, which spends roughly $32 million a year on programs to address abuse of opioids and other substances.

State Sen. Josh Green (D, Kona-Kau), an emergency room doctor on Hawaii island, called Wednesday for greater vigilance in monitoring prescription drugs in the community. Only about 10 percent of medical providers who are required by the state to sign up for a database drug-monitoring program actually use the program to check how many drugs are prescribed to patients, he said.

“Right now our capacity is very limited. Long term it is going to take a massive lift from all groups to come together,” he said. “The medical community needs to get empowered to treat people.”

In 2016, state hospitals billed more than $110.7 million in charges for the treatment of 4,017 patients with opioid-related problems, compared with $48.7 million for 2,797 patients in 2010, according to the Hawaii Health Information Corp., an independent nonprofit that collects health care data to improve policymaking.

In response, lawmakers passed legislation to limit the prescribing of certain narcotics, while state officials are examining the potential legal liability of opioid manufacturers.

“This really isn’t just about opioids, this is about addiction,” said Sen. Jill Tokuda (D, Kaneohe-Kailua-Heeia). “This is tearing families apart. It really is ripping into all of our communities.”