Mayor Cherelle L. Parker plans to build a $100 million addiction treatment center and shelter near the city’s jail complex on State Road, but so far has shared few concrete details about what services might be offered there.
The center could help fill gaps in the city’s addiction treatment network if the city invests in a broader range of services there, experts in health policy and addiction treatment told the Inquirer. A key need identified: specialized medical care for people suffering from injuries caused by the animal tranquilizer xylazine, which has contaminated much of Philadelphia’s illegal opioid supply.
Nicole O’Donnell, a certified recovery specialist at Penn Medicine, has been in recovery for more than a decade and now works with people with active addictions as they seek treatment. Since xylazine surged into the city’s drug supply, she has struggled to help patients access addiction care and be treated for serious medical conditions resulting from its toxicity, such as infected wounds, amputations and endocarditis, an infection. of heart valves.
“They need wound care, IV antibiotics, levels of medical care that are so limited,” she said, noting that the Parker administration has “an opportunity to build something that covers non-existent levels of care.”
Addiction treatment facilities often won’t accept patients with severe injuries, she said, and skilled nursing facilities that can handle a patient’s medical needs are prevented from providing them with addiction treatment medications.
It will also be important for the facility to offer psychiatric treatment, said Barbara Schindler, a professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at Drexel University who is also the founder and medical director of a women’s addiction treatment center, Caring Together. About 90% of her patients, in addition to addiction, also face a mental illness.
“You can’t have people going to one place for mental health and one place for addiction treatment,” Schindler said.
The proposal follows Parker’s pledges to provide support to hundreds of potentially addicted people living on the streets in Kensington as her administration moves to end the entrenched open-air drug market. Stabilizing Kensington will require expanding long-term treatment and housing, Parker acknowledged. However, an initial effort to expand housing for people with addictions by adding more beds to an existing shelter in Fairmount was met with intense resistance.
In recordings obtained by The Inquirer, City Managing Director Adam Thiel told City Council members at a budget meeting last month that the site would offer counseling, addiction medication, job training and long-term housing connections.
City officials have said they expect the facility can house more than 600 people and will be completed within three years, with some beds open as early as next year.
Sharon Gallagher, Thiel’s spokeswoman, said in a statement that the city “is excited” to hear comments on the proposal from experts in the field. They are currently hosting “input sessions” with addiction treatment experts and consulting with the City Council and community members about services that can be offered locally, she said.
She added that the city has not yet made decisions about the specific services the site will provide, “especially in terms of treatment.
” READ MORE: Kensington at a crossroads: Here’s the latest news and developments
Avoiding isolation
The facility’s relatively isolated location on State Street concerns some experts, who say the city should provide adequate transportation for residents who need to leave the facility and that housing people with addictions away from neighborhood communities and support systems can hinder them. from seeking treatment.
“If the goal is to help people be part of the community, how does being so separate from the rest of the city work toward that goal?” said Shoshi Aronowitz, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Nursing. “It can definitely affect people who want to go there voluntarily.”
Gallagher said experts the city has consulted with have also raised questions about transportation to and from the site.
City officials need to be clearer about their goals for the facility, how services there will be funded and how patients will return to their communities, said Danielle Gadson, an assistant professor at Villanova University who studies how social factors such as race and socioeconomic class affect public policy.
The city needs to make sure people who are treated at the State Street site are supported after they leave, Gadson said.
“It saddens me to think where these 600 people will ultimately end up, even if our plan is ‘successful,'” she said, especially given the strong backlash from neighbors in areas where the city has proposed other facilities for disabled people. homeless with addiction.
“We’re still in a place of, ‘Get them out of here.’ Ask them for help, but not here, – she said.
And Gadson and others were concerned about the possibility of sending people to the State Street site involuntarily. Thiel had told Council members that it might be an option for some people sent to the site.
People who don’t want to commit to treatment may seek drugs once they leave—but, because of their time in treatment, they will have lost their tolerance to opioids. This puts them at a higher risk of overdose.
“Involuntary commitment doesn’t work,” O’Donnell said. “It’s also dangerous.”
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