The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
$175K grant will help treat opioid patients
— The Community Health Center has been awarded a $175,000 grant from the Health Resources & Services Administration that will help treat patients and commatically, munities affected by the opioid crisis.
The number of overdoses in Connecticut has increased in 2017 and Community Health Center staff have seen the number of patients seeking services for drug addiction climb draMIDDLETOWN according to a news release.
Connecticut is one of the highest ranking states in the country for hospitalization and emergency room visits due to drug abuse, the CHC reports.
CHC is providing medication assistance treatment and behavioral health and care coordination support services to more than 900 patients across the agency.
The need for expanded services, especially in the area of care coordination
and the elimination of barriers that support patients in initiating and being retained in mental health and substance abuse treatment, is essential to efficiently address the needs of communities, according to the organization.
“In an average week, CHC receives 25 to 30 new referrals for behavioral health and substance abuse services related to drug and alcohol use across our sites,” Marwan Haddad, medical director of the Center for Key Populations at CHC, said in a prepared statement. “These numbers continue to rise as CHC invests resources in community outreach and awareness, making the drive for expansion of services one of our main goals.”
CHC will be adding another mental health and substance abuse care coordinator to work in collaboration with the full-time care coordinator, according to the release.
“CHC will be using this grant to create an opioid action plan which will provide overdose outreach, education and awareness,” Mark Masselli, CHC president/CEO said in a prepared statement. “Our action plan is designed to target not just our patient population, but the whole community to effectively combat the opioid crisis.”