Declare state of emergency for Trumbull opioid crisis

When disaster in any form strikes, responsible state and federal authorities typically respond forcefully and decisively by declaring a state of emergency.

Whether it’s a disaster of destructive natural consequences such as a hurricane or a public-health threat such as the Zika or West Nile viruses, state and national executive officers follow up such declarations with a speedy dispatch of funding, personnel and supplies to help quell the crisis.

Reports last week of a mercurial spike in opiate overdoses over the past month in Trumbull Coundy clearly rise to the status of a public emergency. Therefore we call on Ohio and/or U.S. authorities to respond in kind by declaring a state of emergency there and to follow up with the release of discretionary funding needed now – not next month or next year. It’s sorely needed immediately to rein in the out-of-control menace that has overwhelmed and paralyzed those on the front lines fighting it.

Proof of the disastrous surge in today’s heroin and opiate scourge in Trumbull County becomes painfully clear when glancing at the front pages of The Vindicator over the past week.

Last Wednesday came the shocking report from the Trumbull County Mental Health and Recovery Board that pinpointed 189 cases of drug overdoses in the county in March, an all-time one-month high. Then on Friday came the news that an additional 13 suspected fatal drug overdoses took place over the previous six days. At that rate, Trumbull County would be on a calamitous course toward 65 lives being snuffed out from the heroin plague by month’s end.

As one might logically deduce, that mammoth surge has incapacitated the county’s already overstretched resources to treat the epidemic’s victims and to perform autopsies on its dead. In the absence of adequate resources, frenzy and helplessness too often rule the day.

As April Caraway, executive director of the recovery board, put it, “Emergency personnel and police are running from one scene to another reviving one person after another with Naloxone. It is like a war zone of sorts.”

Similarly, Dr. Humphrey Germaniuk, county coroner, minces no words in describing the flood of new victims to the county morgue and his office’s inability to properly manage it. “The system is getting ready to collapse,” he said. “We’re being crushed by the workload. There is no help on the horizon.”

Those very real cries of desperation from Caraway and Germaniuk must not go ignored. Given the county’s inability to tap into needed additional local resources, it’s time to call up state or federal reinforcements to lend a critically needed hand.

That help can be most effectively and expeditiously carried out via a formal declaration of emergency.

SEEK AID FROM US, STATE

County commissioners or other leaders could make such a request to President Donald Trump or to U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price. HHS has broad authority under the Public Health Services Act to provide emergency aid to states and localities under siege by a public health crisis. Once activated, the declaration frees up funding for financial, personnel, logistical and other assistance.

Closer to home, Gov. John Kasich could act even more quickly to declare Trumbull County – and perhaps other areas of the state hardest hit by the opiate epidemic – in a state of emergency and therefore eligible for immediate outlays of discretionary funding to provide Germaniuk, Caraway and others potentially life-saving tools.

Kasich need only look east to the example set by Republican Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan. Last month, Hogan declared Maryland in a state of emergency. His order included $50 million to strengthen enforcement, prevention, treatment and other services to respond to the opiate epidemic.

As in Maryland, the level of funding and how best to leverage it could be determined through intense and cooperative dialogue between state and local officials.

A declaration of emergency would complement myriad other positive state initiatives planned or already undertaken to battle the heroin crisis that range from expanding access to Narcan to cracking down on overprescribing painkillers.

The clear and present danger in Trumbull County, however, demands a rapid response. Now with the county of 200,000 standing as ground zero in the destructive epidemic and now with no end in sight to the exponential increase in casualties there, emergency action and assistance cannot be delayed. We call on state and federal officials to muster up the requisite will and compassion to act promptly.