Edmonton bouncer finds herself on the front line of the Opioid crisis
EDMONTON Canada April 19 2018 —She’s not a cop, paramedic or nurse, but these days Nadja Banky is a kind of first responder.
A bouncer on Whyte Avenue, she carries naloxone in her backpack, and is trained to use it in case she finds someone she suspects is overdosing and needs to administer the life-saving antidote.
“Everybody likes their party drugs, but it’s terrifying to see how much it seems to be affecting the younger population especially,” she said in a recent interview about the deadly drug fentanyl.
“A lot of these kids, they’re combing it with alcohol. They don’t understand their tolerance level, they feel OK. They do a bad batch, the next thing you know, they’re dead.”
Banky said she and other bar, restaurant and hotel workers often find themselves on the front-line but notes they’re “not well paid employees that have a lot of certification,” like cops or firefighters. She wants to see more private businesses in the hospitality industry stock naloxone kits and organize trainings for staff, as they often are the ones who can recognize a suspected overdose and the first ones on site.
Any member of the public can pick up a naloxone kit at a registered distribution site, confirmed Alberta Health spokesperson Rob Gereghty in an email to the Star. Under Alberta’s Emergency Medical Aid Act, anyone who responds to an overdose with naloxone is protected from liability.
There are 1,463 distribution sites, and over 50,000 free naloxone kits have been given out across the province, Gereghty added. Albertans have reported 3,300 overdose reversals as of February 2018, according to the province.
But new data from the province released in early April shows the crisis is not letting up. In the first six weeks of 2018, 74 people died from an apparent fentanyl overdose, 25 in Edmonton. Last year 589 people in province died from apparent overdoses from the drug.
Banky believes owners of private businesses such as bars, restaurants and coffee shops have a greater role to play.
“The fact that we have people that don’t even know how to use this stuff is kind of alarming and kind of sad,” she said.
“And a lot of these are minimum wage working people.”
Banky took a training course put together by her friend, Abby Blackburn, who organizes them around Edmonton. At the sessions, everyone from servers, to people addicted to drugs, to concerned community members, take turns injecting oranges with syringes.
Blackburn, who’s a vocalist in the punk community, doesn’t have a medical background, but decided to organize the sessions after she saw the devastating impact the opioid crisis was having in her community.
“Everyone should know how to use a naloxone kit because it’s just like first aid,” said Blackburn.
“It’s just like most buildings have a defibrillator, you should know how to use it.”
Both women want people to realize what a “constant problem” fentanyl has become in Edmonton and across the province.
“We don’t want to see anybody else lose their kids or friends, or loved ones because of something so stupid that’s going around right now, and it needs to be recognized as an epidemic,” Banky said.
“This isn’t just addictions problems, and this isn’t just streetworkers’ problems, this is everybody’s problem.”
Star Edmonton
