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In the Media: Feds Propose More Access to Addiction Treatment; Baltimore's Sewage Problem Persists

Baltimore City skyline.
Phil Gold
/
Flickr
Baltimore City skyline.

A digest of Baltimore news from local sources.

From the Baltimore Sun: Feds propose more access to opiate addiction treatment

"The Obama administration is proposing to double the number of patients a doctor may treat with a controversial heroin addiction medication — an idea that is drawing praise from public health officials, but also questions about the impact it could have on the nation's opioid epidemic.

"The Department of Health and Human Services, confronting a dramatic increase in overdoses from prescription drugs and heroin, is considering a regulation that would permit physicians to treat up to 200 patients with buprenorphine — a drug considered safer and more convenient than methadone.

"Health officials have sought for years to lift the current cap of 100 patients — arguing it limits access to treatment — and are receiving broader support as opioid abuse has spiked. About 28,000 people died of overdoses in the United States in 2014, four times the number in 2000.

"Baltimore Health Commissioner Leana Wen has lobbied for the change.

"'It makes no sense that there's a cap at all, especially at a time when we're addressing a national health emergency' she said. 'We need to do everything we can to lift the barriers to addiction treatment.'

"Heroin claimed 578 lives in Maryland in 2014, a 25 percent increase from 2013, and double the number who died in 2010. Wen said 344 people in Baltimore died from drug and alcohol overdoses in the first three quarters of 2015, up from the 303 who died in all of 2014.

"The effort is part of a larger White House initiative to address opioid abuse. The administration is also seeking $1.1 billion to expand treatment.

"Congress, meanwhile, is advancing legislation to create grant programs that would build treatment capacity. The legislation does not offer new funding to pay for those programs."

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From the Baltimore Sun: Kool Smiles offers free dental care to poor Baltimore children

"Children without dental insurance came to the Kool Smiles office in Southwest Baltimore Sunday with cavities, gum damage and other mouth maladies.

"They were treated and sent home with brushing and flossing advice — but no bill.

"Dentists and hygienists from Kool Smiles' five local offices spent the day cleaning teeth, filling cavities and pulling teeth for free at the Westside Shopping Center location, in an event dubbed 'Sharing Smiles Day.'

"The company doesn't charge indigent families in emergencies, Whang said, but the day focused on preventative care and dental education for parents and their children.

"Kool Smiles has held two of these events in the past two years, and officials hope to make it an annual event. Volunteer work is a priority at the company, Whang said; it also plans to sponsor mission trips for five of its dentists in Ecuador and other countries that lack the level of care available in the United states."

Full Article

From the Baltimore Sun: Sewage soiling thousands of city basements, but another decade of repairs looms

"Ima Bennett was doing laundry one evening when she noticed water pooling around the basement toilet. She pulled out the Shop-Vac and called a plumber while rain poured outside.

"It was no leak. By the time the plumber began an inspection, dark-brown water erupted from the toilet and sink and spewed from a pipe in the wall. Overloaded sewer pipes were sending human waste into the home and two others next door in Bennett's Belvedere neighborhood of North Baltimore.

"The muck that came with that February rainfall filled the basement 2 feet high, destroying the water heater and an air purifier, and soiling a wheelchair and a number of boxes. Frantz Walker, Bennett's brother and the owner of the home, spent $9,000 to clean up the mess and replace the water heater — costs that insurers refused to cover and that Walker is now asking the city to help pay.

"More than a dozen times a day, on average, a Baltimore sewer main rejects the waste residents have flushed down toilets and washed down drains, sending it back into basements. The problem is a side effect of the city's incomplete efforts to stop sewage from overflowing into streams — despite a court order that it fix the aged system by the end of last year. Sewer rates have more than doubled in the meantime.

"As officials prepare to enter a new agreement with federal and state environmental regulators to finish the repairs, critics are demanding that the city be required to address the thousands of sewage backups likely to continue as work drags into the next decade.

"Public works crews responded to nearly 5,000 reports of sewage in city basements last year, according to data the city provided to The Baltimore Sun. Figures from the city's 311 call center suggest the total number of backups is much higher. Residents have reported more than 7,500 backups since February 2015, though the city is not legally responsible for many of them.

"Backups can set homeowners back thousands of dollars — costs the city frequently refuses to cover, The Sun found — and repeated problems can prompt insurance companies to cancel policies or deny claims.

"'You walk down the stairs, and everything you've paid for is destroyed,' said Vincent Johnson, whose Cherry Hill basement was flooded with sewage five times in a single year. Home insurers have dropped his coverage twice, and he doesn't remember how many times the city has denied his requests for compensation.

"He has nonetheless received more than $237,000 for his troubles. When he sued the city in 2010, a jury awarded him $92,000, one-third of it as damages for getting sick after he waded through the sludge with trash bags around his legs. A second lawsuit ended in a $145,000 settlement the city approved in March."

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