Middletown, Ohio is facing the same epidemic opioid problems much of Ohio faces. Sadly, many people are overdosing and the Emergency Medical Services in Middletown are being stretched thin. While Republicans play pretend theater with Medicaid and opioid treatment funding, millions of people are affected by excruciating devastation wrought by addiction. The Journal-News reports that Middletown City Council member Dan Picard is really “thinking outside the box.”
Saying the city needs to think outside the box, Middletown City Council member Dan Picard asked if it was possible for EMS to not respond to overdose calls.
Noting people with cancer don’t get free chemotherapy from medics nor do people having heart attacks get a free heart bypass in an EMS run, Picard asked if there was a law that requires the city to respond to overdose calls.
See, the costs of dealing with overdoses is expensive since that money doesn’t come back. It’s a real problem. It’s one of the reasons the federal government needs to create funding for treatment and care and education in the field of drug addiction. Unfortunately, Council Member Picard looks at the disease of addiction as a matter of will and has no time for this.
“John Smith obviously doesn’t care much about his life, but he’s expending a lot of resources and we can’t afford it,” Picard said.
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“I want to send a message to the world that you don’t want to come to Middletown to overdose because someone might not come with Narcan and save your life,” Picard said. “We need to put a fear about overdosing in Middletown.”
In Picard’s defense, he doesn’t want people to go to jail, but that’s because that costs money too. He did float out the idea of forcing community service on overdose patients as a way of paying back their medical costs. And those costs have skyrocketed because this problem is not going away by simply providing more Narcan to emergency responders.
City Manager Doug Adkins declined to comment on Picard's suggestions until he gets an opinion from the city's law department.
Adkins has said Middletown is on pace to spend $100,000 on the opioid-overdose antidote naloxone, while it budgeted $10,000 for the year.