The city Board of Estimates will vote on a 15-year lease at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum at 2700 Rayner Avenue in West Baltimore on Wednesday. Baltimore officials plan to transform the building into a drug rehabilitation center that will serve an estimated 30 patients at a time.

A company, which is owned by Coppin Heights Community Development Corp., will assume the role as the center’s landlord. The nonprofit assumed responsibility of the center, when Coppin State University handed over the reins to them in 2015. The group’s executive director, Gary Rodwell, said the plan was to lease it to a health care provider, which did not happen.

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Just a few years ago, naloxone was a relatively obscure drug that few people outside of the medical community knew about. Fast forward to today, and most Americans have heard of it -- even if they can't recall its name.

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe says he always carries it on him. New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez signed a law this year that requires all fire and police departments to keep it in stock. A few cities now let people buy it at the pharmacy without a prescription.

Naloxone is the life-saving antidote to an opioid overdose, reversing symptoms like respiratory failure and unconsciousness. In July 2016, the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition estimated that 38 states have at least one police department requiring officers to carry it. But with no end to the opioid epidemic in sight and the price of naloxone on the rise, public officials are starting to worry that they won’t be able to afford it much longer.

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The crowd was overflowing at a nondescript convention center in suburban Maryland, a few miles from the Baltimore airport. The event had originally been capped at 350, but organizers had to make plans for an overflow room, seating an additional 150 people. Despite that, registration still maxed out days before the conference took place. Any event that brings together three regional leaders in the same room -- in this case, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser -- is noteworthy. But that’s not why the overcapacity crowd had shown up on an unseasonably chilly day in May. It’s because they were all there to discuss the opioid epidemic.

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The Senate version of healthcare legislation is the topic on most people’s minds on Capitol Hill. Senate leadership wants to replace the Affordable Care Act with The Better Care Reconciliation Act.  As of this moment, passage of the Senate health care bill appears somewhat in doubt. Yesterday’s CBO score, and a chorus of critics, say the Senate bill will cause at least 15 million Americans to lose their health insurance by next year. It remains to be seen what effect passing the bill would have on patients, doctors, hospitals, insurers, and public health agencies, although there are plenty of people from each of those groups who have criticized McConnell’s “discussion draft” of the bill.

On today’s edition of Healthwatch, our monthly conversation about health and well-being in Baltimore with Baltimore City Health Commissioner, Dr. Leana Wen, we’ll talk about the impact the Senate bill might have on our city’s most vulnerable populations, and the ongoing fight to quell the growing opioid epidemic. 

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