A version of this interview aired during Morning Edition on WVIA Radio.
SARAH: Counties throughout Pennsylvania are searching for ways to spend millions in settlement dollars designed to combat the opioid epidemic. In Wyoming County, officials are trying to stretch their funds and target as many county residents as possible. WVIA's Lydia McFarlane has been looking into this for one of her first stories as the WVIA News healthcare reporter - she joins us now. Lydia, hello and welcome.
LYDIA: Hey, Sarah, thanks for having me.
SARAH: So Lydia, tell us about this program that Wyoming County Commissioners are getting off the ground.
LYDIA: So Wyoming County received about $300,000 in opioid settlement funds so far. They expect to receive about a million dollars over 18 years, and right now they are working on sending out Deterra kits, which are drug deactivation systems, to every household in the county and every mailbox at Keystone College, which is within the county. So that's about 17,000 Deterra kits. And the Deterra kits are just little bags, and they deactivate active pills and opioids. This is a program that will help the county combat the opioid epidemic and the way that it's kind of ravaged the county. So throwing out drugs can get into the environment, flushing drugs can send it into the water table. So the commissioners think that these Deterra kits are best practice for the disposal of the drugs, because it can deactivate up to 45 pills, six ounces of liquid and six patches. So, you put the drugs in the bag. There's charcoal in it. You pour water over top of it, it sizzles a little bit, and then the drugs are completely neutralized and safe to throw out after about 30 seconds. So every household in the county can expect to receive those by mid September, so coming up soon, and they are really excited about this, and are receiving great feedback so far.
SARAH: Yeah, they have been receiving great feedback, like you say in your story here. The county is being looked to as an example for other counties that have this opioid settlement funding and maybe don't know what to do with it yet, right?
LYDIA: Yeah, absolutely. So I just spoke with the Luzerne County Opioid Commissioner the other day, and he said that they are really proud of Wyoming County for the work that they've done, and that it's a great idea. Luzerne County said that they're looking into it to see if, you know, it would be something that's effective in Luzerne. But Luzerne versus Wyoming County, there's a big population disparity, so they said they might not be able to...do it to that extent. But they think that it's a great idea, and that Wyoming County is setting an example for sure.
SARAH: Now, let's talk about that population disparity a little bit because Wyoming County Commissioners, they might feel that they're getting a little bit less settlement money than some neighboring more populous counties like Luzerne and Lackawanna. How do you think that they're stretching their dollars? And what have they done that's effective to do that?
LYDIA: Yeah, absolutely, so in speaking to Luzerne County, Luzerne received about a million dollars so far at this point with the opioid settlements, whereas, like I said, Wyoming County received about 300,000 and spent about $75,000 on the Deterra project. So for the Opioid Trust, which is from the state, the qualifications for receiving money are based on population as well as opioid overdoses per capita. So because Wyoming County has a less dense population, they just weren't receiving as much money as counties like Lackawanna or Luzerne that have a much higher population. So I think that being able to spend the $75,000 on the Deterra kits, and sending the kits to each household rather than each resident, is really stretching that money and making sure that it reaches as many residents as possible.
SARAH: Now, we are a couple of weeks into your tenure as the WVIA healthcare reporter, so we've seen a few stories from you already. But what are some of the things that you are hoping to focus on in the healthcare beat, and why is this so important for our region?
LYDIA: So I've had a great time. I'm about three weeks in so far, and some of my favorite stories so far are a story about a doctor that also doubles as a farmer and donates produce to the community and local food banks. This week, I was working on a story about a 20-foot, inflatable IUD named Freeda Womb, and looking forward, I definitely will be doing a lot of women's health stories, especially heading into the election season where women's health and abortion is just going to be such a huge issue and such a hotly debated topic. And I think the importance of this position and this beat is that there's still such a disparity in health care across the region, as well as across the nation. So I think it's a chance to take national topics and localize them a lot more, and to show that this disparity that we see on things like the nightly news are happening right here at home, especially because we have such a rural population within our coverage area. There's a lot of disparities and things like, one of our counties in our coverage area just doesn't even have a hospital. So it's things like that, where it's like, how are people getting their healthcare? How are people getting their needs met when it comes to their health and their safety? So I think I'll be focusing a lot on rural healthcare and how people in those more remote areas are getting healthcare. I think that there's a lot of policy impacts. So, talking about the election again, we can look at the stances of candidates and some bills that are being passed and how they're impacting people right here, and that's something that I'm interested in digging into and just looking at.
SARAH: All right. Well, Lydia, I'm sure we'll be getting plenty of contacts for you in the coming weeks. If anyone wants to reach out to her, please find her at wvia.org Thank you so much for coming on.
LYDIA: Thanks, Sarah, for having me. This was a great conversation.
