New centers to offer immediate help to addicts
ALBANY, N.Y. >> People across the state looking for help in battling opiod and heroin addiction will no longer have to face long waits after Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state Legislature agreed to the creation of urgent access treatment centers.
Lawmakers agreed over the weekend to include a proposal in Cuomo’s 2017-18 state budget to spend $10 million on the development of 10 centers, which would be spread around the state and offer immediate, around-the-clock access to treatment services.
Assemblyman John McDonald III, D- Cohoes, said he is hopeful at least one of these urgent access centers will be built in the Capital Region for addicts in need of immediate help. The centers would be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with staff trained to help those fighting addiction to develop an individualized plan for treatment and life in recovery.
“They are going to be looking at the needs of those communities, so I am hopeful that we will have one in the Capital Region,” said McDonald.
McDonald believes these types of centers could help in many ways, most importantly in getting addicts on an individual treatment plan.
“The idea behind the urgent access centers, first of all, is we’re trying to cut down on unnecessary visits to the hospital,” said McDon- ald. “Secondly, the hospitals, depending on the time of the day and night, are best prepared to deal with an overdose, but they’re not best prepared at times to deal with getting the patients into a treatment and recovery program. These urgent access centers will be there when somebody calls at 10:30 at night on a Sunday and says ‘I need help, and I need it now’. It would be a place where family and caregivers could bring their loved ones to, one, get treated, but two, to have a true systematic review of all of their needs and wants.”
McDonald said he believes the new centers will have an immediate impact in the fight against an opiod and heroin abuse problem that has grown to epidemic pro- portions nationwide.
“These urgent access centers, I believe, are novel and really are meeting the demand for individualized service,” said McDonald. “I stress individualized because everybody has a different view of what treatment is.”
State Sen. Neil Breslin, D-Albany, said he also believes in this and other non-traditional treatment options for addiction.
“I am very pleased that as part of the final budget we expanded and developed non-traditional addiction treatment and support services for people struggling with addiction,” said Breslin in a Tuesday morning email. “Having effective, community-based services, including peer engagement specialists, will give people the tools and resources they need to assist in their recovery.”