Meeting explores how community connection can help prevent drug overdoses

POSTED: 04/24/2023 at 3:20 pm

SHARE

Harrison County community members and health service providers gathered for a community meeting to discuss strategies to increase awareness and referral relationships among peer providers of all the resources available. Organized by Health Affairs Institute and the Benedum Foundation, the April 17 meeting featured speakers Lou Ortenzio, Executive Director of the Clarksburg Mission; Dr. Matthew Christiansen, State Health Officer; Dr. Clay Marsh, Chancellor and Executive Dean of WVU Health Sciences, and Sam Quinones, independent journalist and author of The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth.

“People will not develop readiness for treatment before meth drives them mad or fentanyl kills them,” Quinones said. “Therefore, crucial in all this is what you all are doing today….This combining of forces; this sharing of knowledge; having coffee with people you’ve never had coffee with before and hearing their experiences.”

From left: Lou Ortenzio, Executive Director of the Clarksburg Mission; Dr. Clay Marsh, WVU Health Sciences Chancellor and Executive Dean; Dr. Matthew Christiansen, West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources State Health Officer; and Sam Quinones, author and independent journalist

 

Quinones conducted several research trips to Harrison County for the 2021 book, which explores the rise of synthetic drugs in communities and the people trying to aid those struggling in its grip. Stories like the man who secretly kept a community center open for kids that even the city thought had closed, or the woman who retired from corporate America to open a tattoo removal clinic, are what gives Quinones hope that communities can save lives together, one step at a time.

“These stories are merely to suggest that when we repair these torn connections, then the solutions being to present themselves in a more synergistic way,” he said. “It happens in small steps…not worrying we’re not saving the world with every virtuous step we take. It’s what addicts to in recovery every day: small steps, nothing big.”

A Health Access display featuring founder Lou Ortenzio at the community meeting’s resources walkthrough. Health Access is a free clinic providing primary medical care to the uninsured in Harrison and Doddridge counties.
Representatives from WVU Medicine’s Healthy Minds, a network of behavioral health facilities in West Virginia, offer education on Narcan, the brand name for Naloxone. Naloxone is a life-saving medication that can reverse an overdose from opioids.

 

Quinones was particularly eager to attend this meeting as it facilitates efforts he says have never been fully explored in the U.S.: the continuum of care for those struggling with addiction and the largely untapped natural resource found in recovering addicts’ potential.

“The lessons of neuroscience, the opioid epidemic, our new synthetic drugs, the pandemic — the lessons of all that are really just the same,” he said. “We are strongest as Americans in community; as weak as our most vulnerable, and that the least of us lie within us all.”

 

Follow Health Affairs Institute on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

  • State-University Partnership Network (SUPLN): Dr. Tom Bias begins second year of term, welcomes Cynthia Parsons, to Steering Committee
  • WVU research shows mindfulness may improve substance use treatment
  • Staff Profile: Emily Robinson
  • WVU Health Affairs Institute helps strengthen public health agencies through CDC infrastructure technical assistance grant
  • Appalachian Regional Commission names Dr. Summer Hartley as Appalachian Leadership Institute fellow
  • New online training to improve researcher and student knowledge of Medicaid administrative data analysis
  • WVU Health Affairs Institute designated state’s public health institute
  • Community meeting encourages networking to address substance use disorder
  • Gov. Justice announces DHHR secretary and advisory roles for WVU leaders
  • New West Virginia health survey aims to better inform policy makers to help deliver resources to communities in need
  • School of Public Health graduate student presents Health Affairs project at state rural health conference
  • Aiding Medicaid: WVU researchers partner with state to evaluate pandemic policy changes
  • SAMHSA grant provides training on medication-assisted treatment to medical students across West Virginia
  • WVU’s new and successful approach to substance use
  • West Virginia peer recovery program proves effective in fight against opioid crisis
  • Let your voice be heard: Participate in the MATCH survey
  • Telehealth pilot program shows promise in helping former nursing home, long-term care facility residents remain safe and healthy in their homes
  • Grant aims to reduce overdose deaths by connecting substance users in the emergency department to long-term treatment and recovery resources
  • WVU partnership to develop evaluation for state child mental health services