Wolf: $34M to treat opioid ‘plague’
Gov. Tom Wolf responds to a question by Janine Valko, director of Monongahela Valley Hospital’s emergency department, during a roundtable discussion Friday on the drug epidemic at Courthouse Square in Washington.
Governor, Tom Wolf, listens to a question for Janine Valko ,Director, Emergency Dept. Monogahela Valley Hospital. During a around table discussion on the drug epidemic at the County Bluiding in Washington on Friday, June 3, 2016.
Ashley Potts said addiction caught her in a “hamster wheel” that’s affected every aspect of her life even as she helps others.
“I have not stolen anything or committed a crime since I had stopped using heroin, but at 30 years old, I am still a convicted felon,” she said.
She said it took a letter from her boss to a landlord on her behalf to get her own apartment because of her criminal record.
Potts, a recovery specialist with Washington Drug and Alcohol Commission Inc., was one of about 15 speakers in a roundtable discussion held Friday afternoon in Courthouse Square.
The meeting in Washington was one of many across the state Gov. Tom Wolf has led recently to discuss the opioid crisis with regional officials and experts.
“This is not a rural or an urban issue. This affects everybody, all across the state,” said Wolf, a York County Democrat. “In some cases, it’s called an epidemic. In some places I’ve been to, people refer to it as a plague.”
Pennsylvania has followed the rest of the United States as overdose deaths have surged since the early 2000s and garnered increasing attention from policymakers.
There were roughly 2,500 drug-related overdose deaths in the state in 2014. Preliminary numbers suggest overdose deaths last year topped the 2014 figure, exceeding the number of those who died in vehicle accidents, Wolf said.
A spate of 25 overdoses – three of them fatal – in two days last August landed Washington County in national news.
The governor described the opioid crisis as a top priority of his administration, saying the problem supersedes political differences.
His administration issued standing orders last year that makes the overdose antidote naloxone available to all first responders and then available to the public over the counter in pharmacies across the state.
Officials expect a statewide database that will allow doctors and pharmacists to view patients’ prescription histories will be fully implemented by August, Wolf said. He noted “once it’s up and running, doctors aren’t forced to actually look at it,” but later said he hasn’t spoken to anyone in the medical profession who “doesn’t want to address this issue.”
Janine Valko, director of the emergency department at Monongahela Valley Hospital, stressed other ways of pain management are available to medical professionals and recommended creating guidelines for treating pain all physicians would have to follow.
“I think sometimes we are too quick to give opioids,” she said.
Wolf’s 2016-17 state budget proposal includes $34 million he said would allow the Department of Human Services to provide 25 new Opioid Use Disorder Centers of Excellence and treat more than 11,000 new individuals for addiction. The program would eventually expand to include 50 centers and more than 22,000 people.
An impasse between Wolf and the legislature delayed the passage of the budget for this year by nine months. Wolf, however, said following the meeting the proposal’s chances of passing are “actually pretty good.”
“It’s one of those things that appeals to people across the political spectrum because it is a medical problem,” he said.