Grant helps St. E's hospital in drug-dispensing program

By JUSTIN DENNIS

jdennis@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Thanks to new state funding, opioid addiction medication will be available in St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital emergency rooms.

Mahoning County Mental Health and Recovery Board committee members on Monday reviewed a $250,000 State Opioid Response grant awarded to dispense buprenorphine – an opioid used in medication assisted treatment – on a singular basis in Mercy Health emergency departments.

The new program would also “immediately link” patients with recovery specialists and substance-abuse programs. The sooner treatment can begin, the more likely patients are to stick with it, said Dr. Chad Donley, regional medical director for Mercy Health emergency departments.

“If you can’t get them plugged in when they’re ready and willing, a lot of times they fall by the wayside. We probably lose 50 percent or more of those patients.”

For some, the next time they see those doctors is after an overdose, he said.

“Currently, when someone comes in looking for help, their options are limited. This may be your only chance to offer something for them,” Dr. Donley said. “A lot of people present [their addiction to opioids] now and become more willing. Getting help on their own from the outside, without coming to the hospital, has been pretty difficult.”

Brenda Heidinger, the board’s associate director, said “these are people at the very beginning of looking for recovery. As soon as they don’t have their drug of choice and aren’t getting [medication treatments] they start having withdrawal symptoms, which pushes them back out to using.”

Dr. Donley said the Mercy Health emergency room receives several opioid overdoses each day.

He acknowledged any opioid dispensation program carries the potential for abuse, but said strict regulation is the department’s “main concern.”

“It’s not going to be a walk-in opioid clinic,” he said.

“It’s going to be a very established, streamlined process that’s going to only go one way. We’re still carving out the niche of how that’s going to occur and we’re in the building blocks of that since we haven’t done that before.

The board also discussed about $126,000 in rental assistance vouchers awarded through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The funds will be administered through the board to The Help Network of Northeast Ohio.

Lee DeVita, the network’s director of housing, said the 15 vouchers provided by the grant help those in long-term homelessness or struggling to keep housing due to mental or physical disabilities – “the hardest people to serve.”

The network works with partnered landlords and offers wraparound services to help “stabilize” recipients’ lives.

“It’s a very valuable chunk of money that we get from HUD,” DeVita said.

The board is expected to accept both grants at next week’s regular meeting.