Adams Co. Health Officer discusses 2024 legislation

RITZVILLE — Adams County Health Officer Alex Brzezny attended the Jan. 10 Adams County Commissioners and Board of Health meeting to update the commissioners on certain initiatives in the ongoing Washington legislative session that may impact the county. 

“There's probably 40 bills that have to do something with public health, but public health is everywhere,” Brzezny said. “These are the key ones that would affect our work the most.”

One of the subjects Brzezny discussed at length was an initiative to require that all sizes of Washington high schools stock the opioid overdose reversal medicine naloxone, after increasing numbers of opioid overdoses.

“I want to show you the trend in our state that it tends to be the case that during the summer we see more overdoses. It's not been like that always, because also during winter we see a bit of a spike as well. So it's tough to read it, tough to be sort of modeling this, but it is a significant increase,” Brzezny said. “it's on everybody's mind. It has been on our mind and we have been talking about this as a state mostly, and as a region as well. And most of the overdoses are happening in young people, I can certainly attest to that.”

According to a Jan. 10 announcement from the Washington Department of Health, rates of opioid-related fatalities among Washington adolescents aged 14-18 have surged almost threefold.

“The DOH is no longer sort of leaving it up to the locals to say, ‘Hey, you develop your program at school.’ We have a school program, I think in Othello, where Naloxone has been made available. This initiative would use DOH resources to provide naloxone to every school in Washington state that requests that,” Brzezny said. “The ESD would handle distribution, ordering initial kits and refills on behalf of the relevant schools, and it is to complement and not to replace any existing efforts, including say in Othello. It is required by Washington law that school districts with 2000 students or more have at least one opioid overdose reversal medication in each of their high schools.”

Brzezny spoke about the benefits of widely available naloxone. 

“Every time you see an overdose, that's the tip of the iceberg. And therefore, for lack of a better intervention, the naloxone seems to be hand a handy one to saturate the whole community (with),” Brzezny said. “Naloxone not only prevents overdoses … it has a tremendous economic, preventative impact on hospitals, health care dollars, ambulances and crews that are tied up attending to opioid overdoses when somebody else could have treated that individual in the community.”

Brzezny also discussed other new legislation. 

“So at this point, the septage capacity, meaning any facility or system which handles waste, does not require an assessment of treatment capacity, and a bill has been proposed to now require that there is an assessment of such capacity performed,” Brzezny said. “There is a concern about the quality of lakes, of water quality in lakes, and one of the issues is the septics near the bodies of water. If those septics do not have any required inspections or required assessments, then there could be systems that are failing near bodies of water and are polluting the water with the nutrients, which then promote harmful algal blooms, which then changes the quality of water and the ability to recreate and enjoy the bodies of water.”

Another initiative pertains to protecting students’ health in public schools.  

“Another one that's been brought up, and that is supported by the WASALPHO — which is the Washington State Association of Local Public Health Officials — has to do with environmental health inspections at schools,” Brzezny said. “At this point, there is a budget proviso that is blocking school environmental health and safety rules. There are a bunch of rules that apply to the quality of air, the building, certain hazardous materials that may have been used and so on. So this bill is asking for state dollars for upgrades in schools for these environmental health regulations, which are currently on hold. Once instituted or once unblocked, it would certainly unleash a potential for a need to upgrade certain buildings, and this bill would work towards creating certain rules and safety measures for schools that would improve the quality of the environment where the education is taking place.”

Gabriel Davis may be reached at gdavis@columbiabasinherald.com. Davis lives in Othello and enjoys creative writing during his free time. 

    Othello High School, pictured, will soon be provided opioid overdose reversal medicine naloxone at no cost from Washington state, which is doing the same for all high schools across Washington after increasing numbers of opioid overdoses in young individuals.