“Dear PoPville,
This morning in Adams Morgan I saw a woman sitting in the bus stop with a walker slide to the ground seemingly unconscious and twitching. None of the people waiting for the bus had any Narcan and so my friend and I went into Medstar Urgent Care, just feet away, to see if they had any on hand or could help assess the situation. The women behind the desk didn’t get up and said that they didn’t have any Narcan and there was nothing they could do other than call 911. Someone suggested we try the One Medical up the block (on Calvert) and the difference was night and day: the receptionist immediately dug through her own bag to procure some Narcan and an actual doctor, who had come into the waiting room to presumably meet a patient, grabbed a pair of gloves and left the office ready to help.
Thankfully,
by the time we got back to the bus stop an ambulance had arrived and everything seemed to be under control. It very well may be that this was not an overdose at all. However, it seemed to me like a good opportunity to compliment One Medical’s community responsiveness (even though they are owned by Amazon) and ask why Medstar, in an area known to be an overdose hotspot, failed to provide basic care or even have Narcan available.
Also: a good reminder for everybody to have Narcan on you whenever possible, just in case. In Admo, Potters House provides it freely and I’m sure there are other locations in other neighborhoods.”