Hospitals need more detox facilities

Attention all hospitals. We have a national and statewide healthcare emergency. It is an addiction epidemic, primarily an opiate crisis. We need you to take action. We need you to admit and treat, not discharge, the willing patients who present to your emergency rooms and hospitals in active withdrawal from opiates or dying from an overdose. I understand many hospitals’ protocol is to stabilize and discharge. The patient is referred to an outpatient treatment facility but most of these programs do not treat the withdrawal. I consider this practice to be wrong, your patients are often returning to your care in a worse condition. They are dying while waiting for a bed or seeking treatment.

New York state passed a law that allows for a 72 hour hold that is requested by the family of a patient brought in from an overdose. The attorney general’s office has taken on the insurance companies and this must be paid for. Insurance requirements for ambulatory detox services is not mandatory if those services are not readily available. If an ambulatory detox can not be located for the patient than the hospital stay will be covered by insurance.

We are told that heroin detox is not a medical necessity because it is not life threatening. Since when must a disease be life threatening to qualify for treatment? Tell this to the families of Tori Herr, David Stojcevski, Madison Jensen, and others who die of the dehydration caused by unassisted withdrawal. Tell the families of patients who were refused treatment that become victims of a suicide or accidental overdose that their children were not a danger to themselves or others.

We need detox in every hospital. The people who wish to be treated are not failing at treatment. The health care system is failing these sick and desperate individuals. Sue E Martin Saratoga Springs