PRICE IS RIGHT IN OPIOID WAR
HHS BOSS COMES TO DELCO, DOLES OUT $140M IN GRANTS
Kellyane Conway, counselor to President Donald Trump, center, speaks as Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Tom Price, right, looks on yesterday at the Mirmont Center in Middletown. Price announced $140 million in grants to help with opioid treatment.
“This didn’t happen overnight, it won’t be solved overnight, but with presidential leadership and a presidential platform we feel like we can raise awareness across the country.” — Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway
MIDDLETOWN » United States Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway announced Friday morning $144 million in additional grants for the prevention and treatment of opioid addiction throughout the country.
Pennsylvania is a $6.4 million beneficiary of that grant money, which will be administered by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration through six grant programs. Doylestown-based Council of Southeast Pennsylvania will receive $200,000 in grants from the building communities of recovery program, and Norristown’s Gaudenzia Inc. will receive $524,000 for residential treatment for pregnant and postpartum women. The state Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs claimed the remaining $5.7 for targeted capacity expansion.
Grants to 58 recipients are expected to be awarded for three to five years.
The announcement was made during a press conference at Mirmont Treatment Center in Middletown.
“Fighting the opioid crisis is an absolute top priority for the Trump administration, and it’s a top priority for the Department of Health and Human Services,” Price said. “This crisis has hit Pennsylvania hard, there’s no doubt about it.”
According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, approximately 4,600 people died from drug-related overdoses in the commonwealth in 2016, a 37 percent increase over 2015. Delaware County had the 18th highest drugrelated death rate among the 67 counties for that year. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 60,000 deaths nationwide will be attributed to opioid overdoses.
Price said the administration and HHS have a fivepoint strategy to counter the epidemic: Prevention, treatment and recovery; overdose reversal drugs are omnipresent; surveillance and reason for the issue; use of non-addictive
“Fighting the opioid crisis is an absolute top priority for the Trump administration, and it’s a top priority for the Department of Health and Human Services. This crisis has hit Pennsylvania hard, there’s no doubt about it.” — United States Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price
pain medications; and advancing the issue of pain management.
“The treatment and recovery piece is a big one and that’s one of the reasons that brought us here to Mirmont,” he said. “Local communities who love their neighbors … when they’re given the authority and the responsibility and opportunity to be able to care for those folks, then that’s when you get success. That’s when the treatment and recovery numbers go up and that’s what our job is at HHS.”
Conway said there are many moving parts to the epidemic and that it extends across all identifiers.
“This didn’t happen overnight, it won’t be solved overnight, but with presidential leadership and a presidential platform we feel like we can raise awareness across the country,” she said. “The opioid epidemic is not in someone else’s neighborhood, it’s not someone else’s kid or coworker; it is everyone now, and it is everywhere. No state has been spared.”
Before the press conference Price and Conway met with Mirmont staff, Main Line Health leadership, District Attorney Jack Whalen, U.S. Rep. Pat Meehan, R-7 of Chadds Ford, and other experts in treatment services. The center’s Valor with Integrity Program for Emergency Responders program was especially lauded for providing treatment care for emergency responders around the country.
“The VIPER program, in my view, is important partly because (of) the stigma … we all have pride, we don’t want to be swallowed up in shame,” said Conway. “I think to try and destigmatize those in law enforcement and first responders who may be suffering from the disease and addiction is particularly fraught for some of them.
“I think it’s very unique in our travels and I’d like to take that back to the White House.”
Friday’s press conference was not the first direct contact between the Trump administration and Delaware County officials to discuss the opioid epidemic.
County Councilman John McBlain spoke with Conway in Washington, D.C., about the problem during a July trip. He noted that she spoke for about 30 minutes on the topic during a meeting with leaders of federal agencies.
Main Line Health President and CEO Jack Lynch believes the county’s proactive stance to curb opioid death is making an impression on the Trump administration.
“There’s a lot of work going on in Delaware County around prevention and treatment, and I think they’re very impressed with what they saw,” he said.
The $144 million boost in grants follows a separate award of $485 million in grants made in April – provided by the 21st Century Cures Act – to all federal jurisdictions for opioid abuse prevention, treatment and recovery.