Copy this CollectionHealthcare workers are often the first people an addict consciously interacts with after an overdose, but unfortunately, many hospitals and healthcare providers miss an opportunity to affect change in addicts' lives. The status quo is saving a patient from their current overdose, and then sending them back on the streets with no resources, and few options other than returning to their addiction.
The stories in this collection offer glimpses into programs that are working to change this by reducing opiate use in the first place, and providing longer-term rather than episodic support to patients who have already become addicted.
Typically, ER doctors are only authorized to write prescriptions for three-days worth of buprenorphine, commonly called Suboxone, to ease a patient's withdrawal symptoms. But if the addict hasn't made it into treatment within this 72-hour window, they often begin using again. This puts the user at high risk for repeated overdoses that are often fatal. In Syracuse, NY, an emergency room doctor is working to change this by making addiction training available to ER doctors so that they can prescribe Suboxone for longer periods, giving addicts more time to detox and find their way into treatment.
In Wilmington, NC, crisis teams are helping patients who have overdosed find their way from the ER and into treatment facilities instead of prison, and healthcare providers in an array of fields -- including dentists -- are becoming more selective about who they prescribe opiates to, and they are looking for warning signs of addiction in their patients. Finally, providers are beginning to approach addicts with compassion rather than disdain, as is the case in Philadelphia, where addicts are receiving support and guidance to find their way into desperately-needed long term treatment.
