Recent News

The Senate Health Bill Is a Disaster for the Opioid Crisis (WIRED)

Jun 23rd, 2017

After seven years of promising to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, Senate Republicans are now closer to achieving that goal than ever before. Thursday morning, they finally unveiled their secretly drafted healthcare bill. It is not, as some had hoped, a drastic departure from the House's version, which was passed last month. While being slightly less "mean," in that it provides more financial support to some lower-income groups, the Senate bill still lands punches to Obamacare in all the same places.

It still ends the healthcare mandate that every American be insured. It still gives power to the states to drop many of the essential benefits required by the ACA, including maternity care, emergency services, substance abuse, and mental healthcare treatments. It still ends the Medicaid expansion that helped 20 million people get insured (although one year later than the House proposed). And it places a cap on Medicaid, while simultaneously slashing about $840 billion from the entitlement program over the next 10 years to pay for enormous tax cuts for the wealthy. All of which adds up to very bad news for patients—but especially the 2.5 million Americans currently struggling with an opioid addiction.

Read the entire story. 

Dr. Leana Wen: ‘Huge stigma around treatment' of opioid addiction (Washington Post)

Jun 23rd, 2017

Dr. Leana Wen, Health Commissioner of Baltimore City, argues that there is a stigma surrounding opioid addiction, unlike other types of diseases and sickness. Wen says that only one in ten people get the help they need when it comes to opioid addiction.

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Opioids, a Mass Killer We’re Meeting With a Shrug (New York Times)

Jun 23rd, 2017

About as many Americans are expected to die this year of drug overdoses as died in the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.

For more than 100 years, death rates have been dropping for Americans — but now, because of opioids, death rates are rising again. We as a nation are going backward, and drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death for Americans under 50.

“There’s no question that there’s an epidemic and that this is a national public health emergency,” Dr. Leana Wen, the health commissioner of Baltimore, told me. “The number of people overdosing is skyrocketing, and we have no indication that we’ve reached the peak.”

Read the entire story. 

Opioid Overdoses: Mass Casualty Zones In America NPR’s (1A)

Jun 23rd, 2017

Last year alone, more Americans died from a drug overdose than were lost fighting the war in Vietnam.

Opioids, including pain medicines, are turning some cities into mass casualty zones.

President Trump promised to “dramatically expand access to treatment.”

So what’s been done? And what should we do?

Guests

Lenny Bernstein Health and medicine reporter, The Washington Post

Dr. Leana Wen Baltimore City Health Commissioner; emergency physician

Phil Plummer Sheriff, Montgomery County, Ohio

Listen to the entire story. 

Study shows opioid-related emergency department visits highest in Maryland (WBAL)

Jun 23rd, 2017

A new nationwide survey on hospital ER visits and inpatient care shows Maryland ranks No. 1 in opioid-related hospital stays.

As communities handle a growing drug crisis, hospitals in Maryland and other places are treating more and more patients with opioid-related problems.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality released a study Tuesday showing 1.27 million emergency room visits and inpatient stays in 2014, the latest year numbers were available.

Opioid-related emergency department visits were highest in Maryland, the study found. Nationwide inpatient stays increased 64 percent, with patients ages 25-44 and 45-64 having the highest rates. The data comes from 44 states and Washington, D.C.

Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen addressed hospitalizations and overdoses, saying: "It's not surprising. We are seeing a large increase in the number of fatal overdoses here in Baltimore and across Maryland."

Read the entire story. 

Baltimore City Health Commissioner Deeply Concerned About Health of Vulnerable Populations Affected by Senate Health Care Proposal

Jun 22nd, 2017

BALTIMORE, MD (June 22, 2017)—Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen issued the following statement in response to the Senate’s bill to replace the Affordable Care Act released today.

Note from the Commissioner: Our Duty to Protect the Most Vulnerable Populations

Jun 20th, 2017

In public health, it is our duty to protect the most vulnerable populations, from babies to seniors.

As an expecting mother, I know that prenatal care is essential to a baby’s good health. This week, BCHD hosted a celebration for 11 graduates from the Nursing Family Partnership, a program that supports first-time expecting parents by pairing them with nurses who provide important resources and encouragement. Programs like NFP support women with essential education and empower mothers to build healthy families.

How Medicaid fits into Maryland's opioid crisis (WYPR)

Jun 20th, 2017

Sixty-four-year old Johnnie Davis has been treating his heroin addiction at the Bon Secours New Hope Treatment Center in West Baltimore for nearly 20 years.

“When I came here, I didn’t have no insurance,” he said. “And if I wasn’t here, I could imagine where my life would have turned because I was known for drugs — selling drugs.”

With no insurance and no job, Davis paid $8 a week for the Methadone program. The clinic later helped him get health coverage through Medicaid. For the last 18 years or so, his treatment has been covered in full.

Maryland is in the midst of an epidemic. More than 1,800 people died last year from overdosing on opioids, a 70-percent increase from the year before, according to data released last week by the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Medicaid covers roughly 20 percent of Maryland residents, but Medicaid patients make up a larger portion of the Marylanders grappling with addiction.

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Baltimore’s Top Doctor: Why Aren’t We Treating Gun Violence Like A Health Crisis? (Huffington Post)

Jun 20th, 2017

Dr. Leana Wen, Baltimore’s health commissioner and an emergency room physician, wrote a moving op-ed last week after a gunman opened fire on a congressional baseball practice. In it, she highlighted the daily horror of gun violence the medical community faces.

Wen has long argued that gun violence is a public health issue ― a medical emergency without a prevention plan.

“Medical professionals are trained to stanch bleeding, stitch wounds and patch up broken bodies,” she wrote in her piece for The New York Times, titled “What Bullets Do To Bodies.” “We are good at our jobs; most gunshot victims survive their wounds. But every day, we are plagued by the question of how to prevent these injuries in the first place, when the damage is so extensive from weapons so readily available.”

Wen spoke to HuffPost on Monday about why she believes gun violence is a public health issue, and what Baltimore is doing to prevent it. 

Read the entire story.

Baltimore needs more funding for naloxone (WMAR)

Jun 20th, 2017

The opioid epidemic has reached new levels in Maryland, increasing the need for life-saving medications like naloxone. Baltimore City Health Commissioner Leanna Wen says there isn't enough naloxone to meet the demand. 

She says more than 800 people have been saved in the last two years with overdose reversal medications, but numbers are skyrocketing  driving up the costs of naloxone.

"We are short of funding for it," Wen said. "There's plenty of naloxone if we're able to buy it and the manufacturers have been generous in that we've received donations from some of the manufacturers and we've gotten thousands of units of Narcan from these manufacturers, but we should not depend on the charity of drug companies."

Dr. Wen says the Health Department is depending on the state and federal governments to provide funding for these medications.  

Read the entire story.

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