In 2020, 15 Pennsylvania residents died daily from overdoses.
That's down to six residents a day.
"While that is cause to acknowledge the good work that we are all doing together and celebrate that, no one should leave here feeling as though the job is done, because we're still losing six Pennsylvanians every single day, which is six too many,” Governor Josh Shapiro said Thursday at a Wyoming County roundtable on preventing drug overdoses.
Shapiro, state Drug & Alcohol Programs Secretary Dr. Latika Davis-Jones and state Health Secretary Dr. Debra Bogen joined the roundtable at the Wyoming County Emergency Management Agency in Tunkhannock. Shapiro led the discussion on efforts to prevent fatal overdoses and support families struggling with substance use disorder.
The Shapiro administration recently released of its Overdose Prevention Program Annual Report.
What the governor found after an hour of sitting with Wyoming County District Attorney Joe Peters and many actively working in substance abuse prevention and recovery is that they work together.
“We were able to network and get to know each other and know what resources are available,” said Bob Carpenter, executive director, Emergency Medical Services of Northeastern Pennsylvania Inc. “So coming to the table and working together through problems, you know, it's not just one perspective looking at what the problem is, but it's multiple different perspectives.”
Learning how to help
Shapiro and the secretaries wanted to know how the state could better support communities like Wyoming County.
Cammie Anderson, a drug and alcohol prevention education supervisor, works five days a week in the Tunkhannock Area School District.
"I am just so passionate about prevention and feel that it is so important, not that any of the treatment work that's being done isn't amazing too, but, you know, my goal is always to kind of have less people coming through your doors,” Anderson said.
She starts teaching medicine safety to students as early as kindergarten. She provides education and intervention.
“I work with kids whose families have struggled, who may have someone who struggled or lost somebody to addiction, it looks much different to have somebody come back in from recovery and be mom and dad again, or to watch your parent die, or find your parent dead,” she said.
She works separately from the school’s mental health counselors, but also hand in hand.
Shapiro said the state provided $300 million for schools to hire mental health professionals.
“That is working. Is that different from what you are suggesting we need? And if so, how?” the governor asked.
“I think funding needs to be so that all counties, all school districts, could have a drug and alcohol person sitting in that school. I just think that's what works,” Anderson said.
The state Department of Drug & Alcohol Programs distributed more 800,000 doses of naloxone and more than 700,000 test strips to frontline organizations.
Others encouraged Shapiro to ensure his administration continues providing naloxone – often called Narcan – so counties can distribute the life-saving drug throughout communities.
They also told the state leaders that stigma still exists around substance abuse disorder. They advocated more student loan forgiveness for people seeking advanced careers to work in recovery.
They suggested streamlining funding to hire people to work in substance abuse prevention and recovery.
Peters said the county has a co-responder who goes out with law enforcement to mental-health related calls.
“Once everybody's safe, the police can go on and do their thing, and this person takes that warm hand off, this co-responder, and delivers that person to treatment,” he said.
The county pays her through opioid settlement funds and from one of its mental health providers.
“It is important for us to kind of study how the commissioners and your office are sort of dealing with her funding on the back end, so we can figure out how to streamline that for you,” Shapiro said.
Another federal snafu
On Tuesday, the federal government removed about $2 billion in federal grant money for mental health and addiction programs nationwide.
By Wednesday, the funding was restored. Bogen said the state received a notice of losing two grants, both also restored.
“Over the course of the last year, the federal government has tried to take away nearly $5 billion worth of money that has been earmarked to or appropriated for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” Shapiro said after the roundtable. “Each time I've taken them to court and won and gotten the money back for our Commonwealth.”
He said Pennsylvanians pay federal taxes and deserve what is theirs.
“I'm going to continue to stand up to ensure the dollars, whether they go to helping people with addiction, or making sure that our air is clean to breathe, and everything in between, that those dollars make their way to Pennsylvania,” he said.
