Firelands says it once had detox unit – Sandusky Register

But Pete Schade, the county’s health commissioner, and Kirk Halliday, executive director of the Mental Health and Recovery Board of Erie & Ottawa Counties, both say they are confident the health department’s planned detox center will meet a need.

Halliday said numerous beds will be filled by local residents who go there as an alternative to going to jail and said he’s certain the detox center will draw clients who otherwise would certainly occupy jails in Erie and Huron counties.

Schade released a list of more than 748 cases of emergency room visits for drug overdoses in the last year in the local four county area, including 328 emergency room overdose cases for Erie County residents.

The health department is seeking to build a 16-bed detox center where addicts can go through withdrawal under medical supervision. The department has actually applied for a state grant to help pay for building a detox center on the health department’s campus and also is seeking local funding.

The Sandusky Register emailed Firelands Regional Medical Center on May 3 and asked, “Is Firelands planning to build a detox center, or has actually the hospital had a detox center in the past?”

Malyssa Winters, a Firelands spokeswoman, consulted along with hospital officials and sent the Register a long statement the next day, revealing that the hospital formerly had a detox unit, but shut it down five years ago because it got little use, even after the hospital slashed the unit’s size.

“The unit started out at 32 beds and was reduced over time to six beds. At the time of closure in 2005, the average daily census for the unit was 1.2 patients,” Winters wrote.

“There were several reasons for the low census including a body of research coming out that indicated that 98 percent of persons along with addiction problems could be treated just as effectively in outpatient much less expensively which is still true today. This information led numerous insurance companies to deny access to detox services. Also, at that time, the community demonstrated an increased need for inpatient psychiatric services.”

Winters wrote that the hospital still has actually the ability to detox patients at the hospital if it’s necessary.

“There could be a misconception about this in the community because we do not have actually these services in a separate unit. We detox patients on the medical floors and in the In Patient Psychiatric unit if it is medically necessary,” she wrote.

Firelands has actually no plans to built a brand-new detox center, but offers a full range of addiction treatment services for adults and adolescents — not just in Sandusky, but in numerous other regional locations.

Financial help is available for people who don’t have actually enough money to pay the full fees or who don’t have actually good private insurance, Winters wrote.

“Services are available for adults, adolescents and their families at locations in Erie, Huron, Lorain, Ottawa, Sandusky, Seneca and Wyandot Counties. Funds are also available, based on a sliding fee scale, for those in need through support from The Mental Health and Recovery Board of Erie & Ottawa Counties, The Huron County Board of Mental Health & Addiction Services, and The Mental Health and Recovery Services Board of Seneca, Sandusky and Wyandot Counties,” she wrote.

Halliday told the Register in an email that the detox center will likely get numerous patients and that the health department and hospital should work together.

“I expect the biggest users of the detox center will be the local jails of both Erie and Ottawa counties. The sheriff of each county has actually expressed concern that they have actually a lot of inmates who are being detoxed at the jail which is not a good situation. Guards cannot be expected to be aware of the symptoms of somebody suffering through serious detoxification complications, which in rare cases can be fatal (particularly for alcohol),” he wrote.

“Firelands offers superb aftercare treatment and I would certainly like to see collaboration between them and the Erie County Health Department. That would certainly be extremely beneficial to the patients of both,” he wrote.

Schade said that the magnitude of the problem convinces him there is a need that isn’t being met locally.

He said the health department owns software which allows it to collect information on emergency room visits, so he ordered a search for drug-related emergency room visits from May 6, 2015, to May 5, 2016.

The search turned up 748 cases: 328 for Erie County residents, 187 for Sandusky County residents, 165 for Huron County and 68 for Ottawa County.

Schade released PDF files listing the cases to the Sandusky Register and emailed them out to local officials, writing, “Look at the numbers needing detox. Incredible.”

Schade removed the names before releasing the files but said he recognized the names of some of the patients.

“Quite a few of those I know are dead, just from names in your newspaper,” he said.

The hundreds of cases are only cases that turned up in the emergency room, so obviously there are numerous additional drug overdose incidents in the area, he said.