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Physician Miriam Komaromy said that throughout her years of experience treating prescription drug addiction, she has encountered people personally affected by it.
Just last Friday, a mother told Komaromy her personal story.
“The parent who spoke at this roundtable, her son overdosed with friends,” she said. “The friends didn’t have any Narcan. They run away and left him lying on the floor and he died. If they had Narcan, they could have saved him.”
Komaromy, 51, was invited Friday by Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) to a roundtable with regard to legislation he is working on to help prevent prescription drug addiction-related deaths. The roundtable, which featured six panelists, was held in Los Lunas.
Komaromy is the associate director for UNM’s Project Echo, which connects medical specialists from Albuquerque to rural areas in the state. Komaromy said Udall is working to make Narcan, a drug that revives drug users who are overdosing, more accessible in the country.
“That drug now doesn’t require prescription, and a pharmacist can just dispense it to a patient,” she said. “Sen. Udall’s bill goes one step further, and he wants to just make it over the counter. So you can just go in and buy it because it’s really, really safe. It doesn’t have a lot of side effects. If someone’s dying, it can bring them back.”
Komaromy said she had previous local experience writing local legislation regarding prescription drug addiction. She said the legislation “required insurance providers to pay primary care doctors to treat addiction.”
Born in California, Komaromy moved to Albuquerque when she was eight years old. She got her bachelor’s degree in St. John’s College in Santa Fe, then went to medical school in the University of California San Francisco.
In 2003, Komaromy moved back in town to serve as a professor at UNM. Her involvement with UNM’s Project Echo started in 2006.
Last school year, she became associate director for the program.
“Through the University, there’s the opportunity to not just treat one person at a time, but to also do education and help a lot of different people, who in turn can help a lot of other people,” she said. “If I train 10 doctors to treat addiction, they may each treat a thousand patients. It’s a whole lot more than I can do.”
And she loves Albuquerque’s smaller community, she said.
“The pace is a little bit slower,” she said. “That can be a good thing. Because it’s smaller, there’s a potential to have a bigger impact. If you’re in California and you want to introduce some legislation, good luck.”
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Komaromy said she is optimistic that Udall’s planned bill would pass. She said she aims to participate in another roundtable discussion to raise local awareness among medical practitioners about the issue.
