We provide free lifesaving training and supplies to vulnerable communities to avert preventable deaths. The opioid crisis in Toronto continues to intensify during the COVID-19 pandemic and opioid-related deaths continue to rise in record breaking numbers. The data and statistics are startling and somber. The opioid overdose crisis remains a public health emergency that requires immediate mitigatio
n and swift action. Nick Rondinelli who is the owner of Heart to Heart First Aid CPR Services Inc, is also the founder and Executive Director of The Community Responder Network, a not-for-profit community organization. He has spearheaded a free specialized overdose response training program called Overdose Prevention & Resuscitation (CPR-OPR). This new classification of CPR training for lay responders was urgently needed as many critical skills required to properly manage opioid poisoning are not covered in basic workplace first aid/CPR courses. Since opioid poisoning causes respiratory arrest, providing the person with immediate oxygen quickly and safely is recommended. This can be done with two-rescuers performing ventilations coupled with chest compressions while using a Bag-Valve Mask (BVM) and wearing 3- to 4-piece PPE. Nick took the guidelines and standards from the newly developed CPR-OPR program and created a specific course to target those who were on the frontlines of the opioid crisis. As opioid-related deaths are preventable, if there is another person around who can help, the intention to call this course “peer support” was to target people who use drugs (PWUD), friends, allies, and frontline workers who are close in proximity and can intervene quickly to divert an accidental overdose-fatality. The initiative provides a free 2.5-hour “Peer Support Responder (CPR-OPR)” training and relevant first-aid and PPE supplies directly to the community most impacted and very likely to provide overdose response. Skills and training scenarios include using naloxone simulators, performing conventional CPR with ventilations, using a Bag-Valve Mask, checking for carotid pulse, providing assisted breathing, and practicing two-rescuer skills. The training also includes practicing while wearing 3- or 4-piece PPE to help manage aerosol generating medical procedures (AGMP) during COVID-19 and cross contamination with toxic chemicals. CPR-OPR uses a combination of current guidelines and protocols from “lay rescuer CPR” and the more advanced skills from Basic Life Support (BLS). Using a collection of evidence-based first aid response practices, the training provides learners, based on their training and confidence level, with a toolkit of options to safely provide a person experiencing opioid poisoning with the recommended first-aid response. Almost all the additions and recommendations in CPR-OPR were affirmed in a new medical statement by the American Heart Association (AHA), released on March 8, 2021, three days after the launch of CPR-OPR. It’s called “Opioid-Associated Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest: Distinctive Clinical Features and Implications for Health Care and Public Responses." This extraordinary alignment between our work and advocacy in overdose response, and the later- published AHA medical statement, solidifies that “evidence” must be rooted not only in science but also from lived experiences of people who use drugs along with the professional observations from frontline workers and service providers. The Peer Support Responder (CPR-OPR) training was borne out of, and continues to serve as, an initiative of love and care. After much advocacy efforts, the training has finally caught the attention of decision-makers, bureaucrats, as well as partners at shelter and harm reduction networks. This impact report could not have been made possible without all the 75 peer responders who took their time and effort to complete the training. I, along with my, team would like to thank everyone who has supported this initiative.
