One of the reasons for that drop may be the works Atrium Medical Center and the city’s Heroin Response Team have been doing together.
The Middletown hospital asks those being treated for an overdose if their medical information can be shared with the city’s Heroin Response Team, said Tina Gregory, director of the hospital’s emergency, trauma and maternity services.
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The Heroin Response Team is made up of a paramedic, a police officer, and a drug addiction counselor who visit people who had overdosed and guide them into the health care system to receive the counseling and treatment needed to defeat their addiction.
Gregory said the Heroin Response Team has met with patients while they are still in the emergency room. She called those instances “very good windows of opportunity” because the patients are willing to seek help and treatment options.
Atrium also is seeing a drop in people needing treatment for heroin overdoses, Gregory said.
At the “height” of the overdoses, the hospital treated four to seven patients a day, she said. Now, she said, the hospital is treating about four overdoses per week.
Gregory credited “a huge community response” for that drop.
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