Task force fights opiate epidemic
“Task forces are temporary,” said an official on the supposed ephemeral role of the Franklin County Opiate Crisis Task Force that I chair. In May, we are expecting the release of a countywide opiate initiative that might reduce the role of the task force.
The opiate epidemic is not getting better, it’s getting worse. In January and February of this year, we have had 91 overdose deaths. Last year we had approximately 60 overdose deaths for the same period of time.
Solving this challenge is not easy and won’t happen overnight. I initiated the task force in 2016 to solve the collaboration gap I recognized in our community. It was clear everyone wanted to help, and was trying, but agencies, whether law enforcement, medical or treatment providers, were not communicating with one another.
The task force is an important platform for our community to connect and unify efforts to solve this challenge together. And it is working, making a meaningful impact.
The membership of the task force includes more than 200 stakeholders with representatives of every agency that needs to be at the table: prosecutor, public defender, judges, legislators, coroner, members of the Medical and Pharmacy Board, treatment facility providers and funders, physicians, nurses, social workers, people in recovery, and more.
Our work has been focused on empowering our members in subcommittees to take action on specific items curated in the Community Action Plan. With little to no funding, we have produced results, some of which include a standardized protocol for the emergency departments in Franklin County around opiates and overdoses. We developed a pocket guide for providers with current resources for pregnant women with addiction. The rapid response surge notification protocol was created through the task force, as well as several educational forums for providers to improve care.
Currently we have held two community naloxone trainings to bring naloxone to family members and friends of those with addiction. We are currently working on three more trainings in different areas of Franklin County. And, last but not least, we have created awareness in the community of this crisis through our speaker’s bureau and two annual largescale events focusing on solving the epidemic here in central Ohio.
The opiate crisis involves more than the individuals and families in addiction. This is a multilayered, complicated disease that affects our employers, our children, our mothers and babies, law enforcement, courts, healthcare providers, funders, legislators, neighbors and family.
Now is not the time to shutter or diminish one of our greatest community resources that has proven its ability to help solve this challenge collaboratively. I fear that siloing agency efforts to “statutory” rigor, and behind closed doors, will thwart the collaborative progress being made by the task force in bringing the community to the table.
In the near future we will learn of a new opiate initiative for Franklin County. I am hopeful the task force remains an important component of this community effort. We should stand together, not apart, as we work to solve central Ohio’s worst drug epidemic in our history.
Dr. Anahi Ortiz Franklin County coroner Columbus Member Columbus City Council Columbus