Source: Community Health Network / Community Health Network
INDIANAPOLIS — Addiction recovery will be just a bit easier as a new treatment at Community Fairbanks Recovery Center gets patients access to medicine sooner.
Withdrawal symptoms and the itch to relapse are the hardest part of recovering from an addiction. The new outpatient Addiction Medicine Clinic gives help the same day that patients arrive.
“It’s vitally important to the recovery of someone with opioid use disorder to have as fast access as possible to life-saving medication.” said Gretchen Johnson D.O. at Community Fairbanks Recovery Center.
Outpatients can walk-in and get access to medicine that fights withdrawal symptoms the same day. Other programs often have counseling requirements that blocks quicker access to medicine.
“This alternative approach takes down the barriers to treatment by meeting patients where they are.” Community Health Network said in a press release.
“It protects against overdose. It protects against withdrawal symptoms. It protects against cravings . . . It’s really hard for someone to squash that down by themselves without the assistance of medication.” Dr. Johnson said. “Everything in them is telling them to go use again and that can be the fatal time. That they use once, and they overdose, and then they never come back in and we never get the chance to help them.”
Doug Huntsinger, Executive Director for Drug Prevention, Treatment, & Enforcement and Indiana Commission to Combat Substance Use Disorder Chair, went to the clinic to see the new treatment.
“Our low threshold clinics to help provide medication for opioid use disorder and… engage individuals into the treatment process is so important in taking that first step.”
More information on Community Fairbanks Recovery Center can be found here.
