NOREEN: Sheriff deserves credit for detox unit success
The bad news is that the temporary 20-bed detox unit that opened Aug. 20 in the old county jail downtown has been full most of the time.
The good news is that only seven months after the detox unit operated by Pikes Peak Behavioral Health closed, Sheriff Terry Maketa and a coalition of other community entities stitched the safety net back together. By sometime in early November, a permanent 40-bed facility should be operating near the new jail on Las Vegas Street.
“I knew we would get up close to capacity,” Maketa said this week. “Right now, the biggest challenge we face is that volume is greater than we expected.”
With funds from local hospitals, the United Way and the state’s Alcohol and Drug Division, the small temporary operation got started.
“We’ve got some great people doing a great job for us,” Maketa said.
Meet Teri Lawrence, the detox supervisor, who said “the sheriff’s office stepped up when nobody else would. The community was taking a big hit.”
Those with substance abuse problems, especially medically indigent persons, had almost nowhere to go. They routinely would show up at hospital emergency rooms, which had to eat the cost, and that cost is substantially more than it costs for a night in detox.
Lawrence said it was too early this week to compute the average daily cost of the detox unit, but even without the numbers, we know it makes financial sense because the hospitals have kicked in money for the program she supervises.
“We have had phenomenal support,” Lawrence said.
In the early days of the program, the typical stay per client has been one to three days, Lawrence said.
“They come in here at their absolute worst,” she said. ““Eighty-five percent of addiction is (caused by) underlying issues. There’s a million reasons why someone turns to self-medicating.”
Of course there are many repeat customers.
With eight years of experience in substance abuse rehabilitation, Lawrence said “even if you see the same person six or seven times, sometimes the light goes on” and they start the journey back to sobriety.
Sure, some people never get there and the detox population tends to grow when it gets cold outside.
Some people don’t really want the help. The key is that, thanks to the detox facility, the community always makes the help available.
The detox center doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t share client information with the sheriff’s office or probation officers, even though the program is under Maketa’s charge.
Outstanding warrants? “We don’t know and we don’t care,” Lawrence said.
When resources are drying up everywhere, solving this problem was an important reversal.
Without Maketa, this amazingly quick fix would not have happened.
Way to go, sheriff.
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