GENESEE COUNTY, MI – Genesee Community Health Center installed a Narcan and fentanyl testing strips vending machine at the Mass Transportation Authority downtown Flint Transit Center on Thursday, February 9. This is the first Narcan and fentanyl testing strips vending machine in Genesee County. Flint and Genesee County residents can access the machine inside of MTA free of charge.
Narcan is the brand name for the Naloxone nasal spray medication that reverses opioid overdose. With the growing opioid epidemic, Americans have been urged to carry Naloxone. This is especially important for anyone, including friends and family, who interact with someone at an increased risk of an opioid overdose.
“Improving access to the life-saving drug Naloxone is essential to fighting the opioid crisis,” said Carrie Chanter, director of Prevention, Health & Wellness at GHS.
“This is especially important as we have witnessed an alarming increase of Fentanyl in our communities,” Chanter added. “We are grateful that MTA provided the location for this life-saving drug as it is a consistently busy hub for Flint and Genesee County.”
“The Mass Transportation Authority appreciates this opportunity to partner with Genesee Community Health Center on this very important issue affecting our community and the country today,” said Ed Benning, GM and CEO, Mass Transportation Authority.
In addition to MTA, this project has been in partnership with the Greater Flint Health Coalition, UM-Flint Public Safety and UM-Flint physician assistant students. The project has been paid with grant funding from Region 10 PIHP and MDHHS.
“We are so grateful to help give the Flint community such a valuable resource that will save lives,” said Lauren Allen, Zehra Al-Ghazaly, and Emily Barrie, UM-Flint physician assistant students, Class of 2023.
“To think that this was an idea we came up with a year ago for our interprofessional project before we graduated, and to now see it go live, is incredible,” Allen added.
The Greater Flint Health Coalition is supplying the fentanyl testing strips for the vending machine as well as general information regarding fentanyl. Fentanyl testing strips are small strips of paper that can rapidly detect the presence of fentanyl in many different kinds of drugs.
“Greater Flint Health Coalition is excited to serve as a partner in this collaborative effort,” said Kelly Ainsworth, project director of Mental Health and Substance Use Initiatives at GFHC.
“Increasing connection to harm reduction resources such as Narcan and fentanyl testing strips is essential to reduce negative consequences of substance use, such as overdose and overdose death while supporting people where they are at and creating connections to other locally available resources and services,” Ainsworth added.
GCHC staff will be onsite at the MTA downtown Flint Transit Center over the next two weeks to answer questions regarding the Narcan medication and other substance use resources.
The Genesee Community Health Center (GCHC) offers free virtual Narcan training sessions to the community. The training session teaches how to recognize the signs of an opioid overdose and administer the opioid overdose reversal.
Learn more about Narcan training sessions at www.genhs.org/NarcanTraining and Genesee Community Health Center at www.genchc.org.
