All schools in the Grande Prairie area should now have Epi-Pens on-site as part of a new piece of provincial legislation. The Protection of Students with Life-Threatening Allergies Act, which came into force on January 1st, mandates all schools have at least one epinephrine auto‑injector (Epi-Pen) on-site.
It is meant to allow for potentially life-saving medication to be given to those suffering from an allergic reaction.
Grande Prairie & District Catholic Schools Superintendent Karl Germann says they’ve already got students inside schools trained by Alberta Health Services to be first responders. He adds, due to delays in response times, the division felt it is better to be safe than sorry.
“Up until now, parents and kids had always carried them on them and we had some in the school, but this is an extra safety back-up.”
“Those kids who are trained, or the staff members who have been trained to administer it, can administer it, so it’s not just randomly issued by somebody, it’s issued by somebody who roughly knows what to do in an emergency situation,” he adds.
On top of the legislatively mandated Epi-Pens, three high schools in the city have also been given naloxone kits. Germann says they’ve never come across a case of the overdose-reversing drug being needed in any of the schools in the district, but geography played a part in making the decision.
“Because [the] high schools are in proximity to other areas within the community, there might be a need to administer it. We’ve never had a time where we had to administer it, but having it in high schools and outreach would be a benefit of people.”
He adds the naloxone won’t be in the form of needles, but instead a spray which can be administered more easily, and possibly more effectively, by anyone with or without training.
