Overdose antidote giveaway planned for released Westmoreland prison inmates

After a two-year decline in fatal drug overdoses, Westmoreland County officials said a slight uptick in deaths in 2020 will require a renewed effort to avoid a repeat of a nearly decade-long era of record-setting deaths attributed to opioid abuse.

County prison board members said Monday doses of Narcan, a drug that can reverse the effects of a opioid overdose, will be offered to every inmate upon their release.

“We need to get it into as many hands as possible,” said Commissioner Doug Chew, who is chairman of the prison board. “There has not been a lot of these Narcan distributions due to covid, so it’s not getting out there. There’s not enough of it in the community.”

Accidental overdose deaths, attributed mostly to opioids, rose steadily from 2009 through 2017, when 193 fatalities were reported that year by county Coroner Ken Bacha.

Efforts to curb opioid abuse and overdoses seemed to take hold as deaths dropped in 2018 and 2019, when 122 and 115 fatalities, respectively, were recorded. The coroner’s office reported 123 fatal overdoses last year. Statistics for the first months of 2021 were not available Monday.

Tim Philips, executive director of the county’s Drug Overdose Task Force, said Narcan doses will be requisitioned from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency through a state grant to provide the overdose antidote to inmates upon their release from the Hempfield lockup.

“I was under the impression we were already doing a Narcan giveaway (to inmates),” Philips said.

When he learned that was not the case, Philips — along with new Warden Bryan Kline and county leaders — looked to refocus efforts to curb overdoses by concentrating on prison inmates.

Officials are not sure just how many doses of Narcan will be handed out. In March, 314 inmates were released from the jail.

No county tax dollars will be used to pay for the program, Commissioner Sean Kertes said.

Officials said not every inmate is expected to accept Narcan when released. But, for inmates whose drug addictions led to their incarceration, the Narcan doses could be livesaving.

He suggested the plan could be expanded to include mailing Narcan doses to inmates’ emergency contacts as a secondary means to ensure it is on hand to prevent potential overdoses.

“We need to do whatever we can to save lives. It’s vital they have it because the days and weeks that follow a release is high risk for overdose deaths,” Philips said.

Related content: Westmoreland to pay inmates at county prison to get covid vaccine.