Philadelphia shares plans to combat nation’s worst big-city opioid crisis in 2020

PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia is home to the worst urban opioid crisis in America. More than 3,000 people have died of drug overdoses here in the last three years, and the city health department estimates that tens of thousands of Philadelphians are addicted to opioids. As the epidemic has worsened, city officials, hospitals, and outreach workers have scrambled to address a complicated public health crisis with few easy answers.

The city has spent more than a year pouring resources and initiatives into Kensington, the neighborhood at the epicenter of the crisis. Two years after fatal overdoses hit an all-time high — claiming 1,217 people in 2017 — it appears that the 2019 toll will be similar to 2018’s, when 1,116 people died.

“The numbers haven’t been finalized, but the preliminary numbers — I’m not particularly pleased,” said Brian Abernathy, the city managing director. “It’s about the same as last year. But I’m not happy with that. The amount of devastation that’s happening on so many different levels is just not something we as a city should think is okay.”

Getting that still-staggering number to budge in 2020 will mean much more work, especially outside Kensington, in areas like South Philly, where drug use usually happens behind closed doors, away from the reach of health workers.

Here’s what the city — and its partners in local hospitals and outreach organizations — have planned for the year ahead.

More peer specialists in and out of hospitals: People who are in recovery from addiction have long been part of the treatment industry. But “peer specialists,” as those who have gone through a state certification process are called, are taking on bigger roles in Philadelphia hospitals, connecting with patients in ways physicians and nurses say they cannot. They are meeting patients in emergency rooms, helping people with addiction navigate the days of early treatment and doing street outreach around the city.

The Temple hub: With help from a large state grant, Temple University Health System has expanded its treatment programs and referrals, acting as a “hub” that sends patients to community treatment programs.

The next generation: At Jefferson Health, MATER, the long-running treatment program for pregnant women with addiction, is incorporating women’s families into their treatment. Instead of requiring a 30-day “blackout” from all contact with the outside world, like many treatment centers do, MATER is hosting family dinners twice a month.