Agency: More docs for opioid addicts

Woonsocket-based group says more doctors needed to prescribe drugs to stem addiction deaths

WOONSOCKET– Newly armed with a donation of $250,000 from CVS Health to create a “center of excellence” for treating opioid addiction, Community Care Alliance says a central goal of the initiative will be to hire more doctors qualified to prescribe Suboxone, a medicine that blunts the symptoms of withdrawal from heroin and relat- ed drugs.

But CCA Director Ben Lessing says the agency also intends to ramp up outreach, in-patient and aftercare programs designed to bring addicts into recovery and keep them there.

“The project is really about trying to address the opioid overdose fatality crisis,” says Lessing. “We’ve had a lot of deaths and the numbers are not decreasing.”

This Northern Rhode Island community has been particularly hard- hit. Last week, on the same day Gov. Gina Raimondo announced CVS Health’s donation to CCA, a top state health official, testifying about the opioid crisis in Washington, D.C., told members of Congress that Woonsocket had the state’s secondhighest rate of opioid-related overdose fatalities in 2016.

“In Woonsocket, specifically, we have the second-highest rate of overdose deaths per capita in 2016,” said Rebecca Boss, the director of the division of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals.

The state Department of Health breaks out overdose fatality statistics in several ways, including by gender and age. But DOH normally does not release statistical profiles of the overdose epidemic by community.

Statewide, there were 336 opioid fatalities in 2016 – 46 more than a year earlier, according to DOH’s web site. Most of the deaths were caused by heroin, but health officials say an increasing number of overdose fatalities involved fentanyl – either on its own or mixed with heroin. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that’s many times more powerful than heroin.

“The number of overdose deaths related to fentanyl has increased 15fold since 2009,” DOH says. “A significant portion of the 2016 deaths

involved fentanyl.”

The announcement that CCA, headquartered at 800 Clinton St., would launch a center of excellence to address the problem may have left the impression that the multi-faceted mental health and human service agency would have a specific site in mind to house the initiative.

But Lessing says a center of excellence is less of a place or a building than it is a system of mar- shaling resources – some of which CCA already has in place.

One critical deficit CCA intends to attack, however, is a shortage of doctors who are qualified to prescribe Suboxone, the brand name of a drug known as buprenorphine. By staving off the symptoms of heroin withdrawal, the use of Suboxone allows addicts to hold down jobs and otherwise function normally because they’re not trapped in an endless cycle of having to buy illegal street drugs – once a day or even more often – to keep from getting sick.

The number of clients who are currently prescribed Suboxone through CCA’s own medical staff currently stands at about 200, but Lessing says it’s clear that many more addicts in this area need to access to treatment.

Using resources from the CVS Health grant, the agency is aiming to launch “two or three” more clinics staffed by doctors who have the proper credentials to dispense Suboxone, according to Lessing.

“We’re hiring them, they’ll definitely be working for us,” said Lessing. “They could be local, but we may have to recruit from outside the local area.”

As effective as Suboxone is, Lessing says it’s only one component of the center of excellence’s overall strategy for reducing opioidrelated overdose fatalities in the city.

“Medically assisted treatment is a tool,” he says, “but it’s also about counseling, case management, securing appropriate housing. It’s about making sure their lives move forward on a different path.”

Lessing said the center of excellence would also strive for greater community outreach aimed at getting more addicts into treatment by working more closely with the Woonsocket Police Department, Landmark Medical Center and Thundermist Health Center.

CCA’s existing in-patient treatment centers would also have a role to play in carrying out the mission of the center of excellence. The organization operates two facilities, Jillson House in Johnston and Wilson House in Pawtucket.