Camden clinic to close

As a physician certified by the American Society of Addiction Medicine, I was concerned to learn about the closing of the Parkside Recovery methadone clinic. This is a public health issue with potentially grave repercussions if alternate services are not immediately acquired and stepped transfers don't begin immediately. Individuals in the program, their families and the community-at-large will suffer. The cost of addictive diseases on society as a whole is exorbitant but the price in human suffering is beyond measure.
At a glance, what this closing means to the client is this: What do I have to do to Not get SICK? The clients need reassurance that providers will step up with a plan that provides transfer of care when this clinic leaves. The rate of recidivism is tragically high among people in recovery.
Uncertainty, doubt, fear and abandonment of medical care added to our current economic landscape is no way to assist the healing of individuals battling the disease of addiction.
What the closing of a large clinic means to the community is that an essential service is in jeopardy. It is analogous to a blackout. It is impossible to detail all the public health problems lack of access to treatment creates. One common perception of drug treatment facilities is that their presence increases crime in the areas where they operate. On the contrary, individuals with addiction who lack access to treatment are more likely to engage in criminal behavior, be unemployed and impoverished. In addition, the condition affects many under age 30; they are in what would have been their most productive years. If they are parents, their children may be taken away if they relapse. Many similar clinics open @ 5:00 AM because clients hold down jobs, are taxpayers and parents.
This disease is mired in shame and negativity, discouraged clients may not stay clean while too worried about services to hold onto hope for a new provider. Replacing the clinics functions and services is critical, if the City of Camden wants the clinic out of Camden, let them co-operate with alternate clinic services in other locales within the county, state, and even out of state treatment centers. The answer that will "work" has 550 names, and the solution will be as individual as their individual circumstances. Nothing would increase the drug purchases on Camden street corners more than if all methadone and buprenorphine prescriptions ceased. Are you sure there isn't some drug Lord behind this? The drug Lords will have a boon in business if this effort is not co-ordinated in a good orderly direction.
Should there be a gap in services when Parkside closes, poverty and homelessness will increase and there will be a significant drain on the existing health and human service providers in Camden City. From the soup kitchens to the hospitals, the “safety net” will be forced to react to this break in care to – diseased people who had the courage to ask for help.

PROBLEM: 550 METHADONE PATIENTS STRANDED IN CAMDEN, NJ .CLINIC ANNOUNCED IT IS CLOSING BY HALLOWEEN 2009.

SOLUTION:
State of New Jersey: There are options :

A) Provide assignment assurance. Assure clients that everyone will have an assigned clinic they can transfer to as one of their choices.

B) Provide a Buprenorphine provider to each client at an assigned clinic they can transfer to as one of their choices. (www.naabt.org if the client has online access)

C) Vouchers provided to each client immediately so they can "pay" for their initial transfer of care and upfront intake costs at any new clinic

D) Voucher credit option; if a client chooses a treatment option such as a drug free rehab facility , give them the voucher credit with the state to be used for fines, taxes, permit fees, etc !

E) Let clients move to Pa, Fla and other states that will pay for the disease of addiction to be treated. (not my recommendation)

F) Send them to Growth & Recovery Services for placement counseling of opioid maintenance care in the interim from now until they are settled in to their new program.

Really New Jersey, let's put some real treatment efforts on this expensive, devastating disease that has been eating up Camden for 40 years.

It is pretty easy to pay for premium services for these clients and others if saving $ is involved .