Health department seeks detox center, treatment facility – Sandusky Register

The Erie County Health Department hopes to open a medically-supervised detox center by the end of the year on its campus at 420 Superior St. in west Sandusky.

The department also is moving ahead with plans to open a treatment center at the former Double S Industries building on Galloway Road.

Pete Schade, Erie County’s health commissioner, said he is seeking grant funding to help pay for the detox center but also plans to seek funding from the Erie County Commissioners and the Mental Health and Recovery Board of Erie and Ottawa counties. Schade has offered a rough estimate that the detox center might cost about $1.5 million.

Schade said that as a drug epidemic continues to rage through the community, he won’t be shy about asking for help. He noted that the Erie County commissioners will be asked for up to $500,000 to help fund the building (if grant funds are not available) and the commissioners own the former Double S building he wants to use.

“After I asked them for 500 grand, I’ll ask them for a free building. I’m not bashful, you know that,” he said.

Schade said he plans to build a detox center that will have 16 beds, eight for men and and eight for women. It will be attached to existing buildings at the health department campus. Schade said he would like to have it open by November or December.

A sheriff’s deputy will be stationed there 24 hours a day to make sure that people ordered to seek treatment as an alternative to jail don’t walk away, Schade said.

He said that while Scott Mularoni, an architect who has often worked with the health department, has done some preliminary drawings, the actual plans and the construction work will be bid out. Schade said he does not know yet if those steps will be bid separate or as a design and build contract.

He said he is looking to build a functional building but one that is not expensive.

“I don’t want to build something that’s a crappy block building, or something that’s opulent or the Taj Mahal,” he said.

Schade said it’s urgent to provide a place for addicts to go through withdrawal under medical supervision.

That doesn’t exist right now in Erie County, he said. Addicts sometimes have to try to do it on their own, or wind up going through withdrawal in Erie County Jail, he said.

“The detox at the jail is as barbaric as you can imagine,” Schade told Erie County’s health board last week. “We shouldn’t be treating our fellow brothers and sisters that way.”

But detox is only part of the picture. It’s also important to make sure that addicts who have gone through withdrawal have a place to go and get treatment so that they don’t use again, he said.

He said that’s why he is working to get a treatment center set up at the Galloway Road location.

Schade said one important argument for the detox and treatment centers is that they will provide an alternative for nonviolent addicts who otherwise would be jailed.

Linda Miller-Moore, the president of the health board, said jail overcrowding is a real problem now.

She said she knows someone who is supposed to serve a five-day jail sentence. That person has been told space won’t be available until at least July 22, Miller-Moore said.