Last Saturday, Dr. Wen spoke at the Open Society Institute’s Solutions Summit to address the public health issues faced by Baltimore City in the realm of behavioral health. The Solutions Summit is the fourth step in OSI’s process to approach the office of the Mayor with significant actionable steps to address the major issues. OSI began the process in early 2016 to convene a community of voices based behavioral health providers, consumers, and advocates to surface critical issues they face in their work in the field of behavioral health in Baltimore. OSI specifically focuses on drug addiction treatment, criminal and juvenile justice, and education while focusing on the nexus between race and poverty.

During Dr. Wen’s keynote, she emphasized three major ideas:

1. Focus on saving lives. These problems are not abstract because they affect real people and those people are part of the web that is the city.
2. Help to change the language around addiction. Addiction is neither a choice nor a moral failing, but a chronic brain disease. Our words need to reflect that. Dr. Wen noted that there are thousands of people across the country who are living testament to the fact that addiction treatment works.
3. Go beyond the stories. We should challenge our leaders to come up with policies and with funding.

At the event, the attendees broke into four major groups to discuss topics problems: stigma reduction, provider capacity and consumer access, housing and recovery support services, and care coordination and integration. In the following months, OSI will convene once more to further discuss and outline the actionable steps for the Office of the Mayor.