The shipments contained 2.1 million defined daily doses of medications, including insulin, antibiotics, long-acting reversible contraception, and other essential medications, as well as medical supplies for Covid-19 response efforts, including personal protective equipment and powered air purifying respirators (PAPRs).

In the U.S., Direct Relief delivered 641 shipments weighing 34,210 pounds and containing 624,611 doses of medications.

The largest U.S. shipments by value (wholesale) went to the following organizations:

• The Never Alone Project – Indianapolis, Indiana ($269.5K)
• Hardeman County Community Health Center ($244.6K)
• Jefferson Comprehensive Health Center ($114.4K)
• Community Medical Wellness Center ($109.9K)
• Big Springs Medical Clinic ($104.5K)
• Partnership Health Center ($88.7K)
• Arkansas Harm Reduction Project ($80.1K)
• Hamilton Health Center ($75.7K)
• Acacia Medical Mission ($68.9K)
• Clatsop County Public Health ($67.5K)

Globally, Direct Relief shipped more than 1.5 million defined daily doses of medication totaling 245,261 pounds.

The following organizations received supplies:

• Syrian American Medical Society – Syria ($4.1M)
• Uganda Cancer Institute – Uganda ($3.9M)
• Ministry of Health – Bahamas ($1.1M)
• Asociacion Vida Peru – Peru ($748.7K)
• Clinica Esperanza – Honduras  ($573.3K)
• Princess Marina Hospital – Botswana ($439.8K)
• Asociacion Medico Social Westmont Bethel – Guatemala ($321K)
• Anera – Gaza ($271.4K)
• Hospitalito Atitlan – Guatemala ($210.9K)
• Hospital Loma de Luz – Honduras  ($184.6K)

Covid-19 Vaccine Clinic Held at Direct Relief Headquarters

On Saturday, more than 100 patients were vaccinated against Covid-19 at Direct Relief’s Santa Barbara headquarters by the Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics.

Volunteers and staff for the Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics welcomed patients, checking them in and ushering them to multiple stations set up throughout Direct Relief building, where patients received the Moderna vaccine.

Direct Relief hosts COVID-19 vaccination site

The Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics treat 22,000 patients each year, many of whom are low-income, uninsured, or part of medically underserved communities.

Direct Relief is a long-standing supporter of the Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics, providing them with funding and ongoing shipments of medical aid. Most recently, Direct Relief granted $150,000 to the neighborhood clinics to help cover their costs related to vaccination efforts.

—-

Since January 1, 2021, Direct Relief has delivered 4,661 shipments to 1,1278 partner organizations in 49 U.S. states and territories and 55 countries.

These shipments contained 55.1 million defined daily doses of medication valued at $202.8 million (wholesale) and totaling 1.9 million lbs. (1,100 tons).

Direct Relief has also supported the following organizations this year with grants:

The post Vaccine Campaign Held at Direct Relief Headquarters, Covid Response Shipments Continue appeared first on Direct Relief.

From rural communities to urban cities, patients struggle to make routine appointments. Some can’t afford a vehicle, others live hours, if not days, from the nearest point of care. The distance–and lack of transportation–leads to delays in medical care, which for some, can be deadly.

On this episode of the podcast, we explore how transportation poses a barrier to care for patients around the world, from rural Nepal to the United States, and what the consequences are for those in need of chronic care.

Direct Relief provides many local health organizations, including Casa de la Amistad in Mexico and Mountain Heart Nepal, with funding to purchase vehicles and provide transportation services to patients and health care providers. The organization has also provided funding for mobile health units that can be deployed to communities without regular access to health care or after a disaster, including rural communities in the United States.

Transcript:

Chronic conditions like diabetes, heart disease and cancer require routine care and strict medication regimens. But sometimes, getting to the doctor is the hardest part.

Five months ago, Rosa Hernandez moved to Mexico City with her son, Andry, who has been undergoing chemotherapy since being diagnosed with leukemia last year.  “La verdad ahora sí, necesitamos estar cerca del hospital,” she said.

Before the move, Rosa’s in-laws helped drive Andry to and from his appointments, but the constant travel became expensive and time consuming. Now, they’re living at Casa de la Amistad.

“My name is Leonardo Arana and I’m the general director of Casa de la Amistad Niños for cancer in Mexico.”

Casa de la Amistad is a full-fledged support center for pediatric cancer patients and their families.

“They will come to Casa de la Amistad here in Mexico city and we will take care of everything. We will take her of the medicines, housing, and transportation, which is very important,” explained Arana.

According to a study by the American Association for Cancer Research, 38% of cancer patients in Mexico report transportation as a barrier to timely care.

Most cancer treatment centers are located hours if not days from rural communities. For those undergoing consistent treatment—like chemotherapy–the distance is a problem.

“Cancer needs to be treated in years, over years. That that’s the way it has to be. So if you bring somebody once and then you don’t give them the possibility to go back they will die.”

Across the globe, in Nepal, a rural population experiences similar challenges. “In Nepal, healthcare facilities are mostly concentrated in urban areas,” explained Dr. Aban Goutam, the founder of a non-profit health care organization, Mountain Heart Nepal, that The group transports doctors and nurses into rural communities to provide healthcare services.

“Mostly the rural villages are located on hilly or mountainous reasons,” he said, “and they consist of smaller health care clinics or community hospitals with limited treatment options.”

On average, it takes Nepal’s rural population more than 2 hours to get to a clinic for basic care. And 92% don’t have a vehicle they can use to traverse the distance. Most walk, bicycle or rely on the public bus. “In many villages, when the mode of transportation is by foot, this often results in delay of treatment.”

While delays can be fatal for those with emergent medical needs, chronic conditions are just as deadly when neglected. In Nepal, getting diagnosed with diabetes or heart disease before it becomes an emergency is rare. Without consistent treatment at the onset, chronic conditions escalate.

For example, unmanaged diabetes can lead to poor circulation and nerve damage, putting patients at risk for developing ulcers and wounds in their limbs.

“These patients with diabetes, the wounds, they do not heal and it takes a long time to heal. So for those people in rural areas, they are mostly farmers, so they have to work and they’re not, they do not consider it as important.

If patients delay care, these wounds can become severe enough to require amputation. Goutam says it’s not uncommon for those with diabetes to lose legs and feet. And, survival rates after amputation are low.

“There are some studies which have highlighted that people with diabetes and have their feet amputated did not live more than five years. So that is more deadly than, uh, cancer.”

In the United States, transportation also poses a barrier to care.

In 2017, nearly 6 million people delayed medical visits because they didn’t have a way to get to their doctor. And according to a study published in JAMA Network—a peer reviewed medical journal–a lack of transportation is associated with a higher number of emergency department visits among Americans.

But in some places, primary care is right around the corner – thanks to the community health center.

“We have clinics in neighborhoods, hence the name and so many, many of our patients walk to our clinics.”

Dr. Charles Fenzi is the CEO and Chief Medical Officer of the Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics – a network of federally qualified health centers in Santa Barbara County, California.

“We’re in the neighborhood and we provide transportation. In fact, that’s written into our contract with the, with the Feds.”

Under the Public Health Service Act, federally qualified health centers are legally obligated to provide enabling services. These are services that break down barriers to help patients access care. Transportation is one of them.

If a patient needs to use a driving service to get to their appointment, the health center pays the fee.

For the most part, Fenzi says transportation isn’t a major problem for patients because they ensure it’s not.

That’s the model of community health centers, he says.

This transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

The post Sometimes, Getting to the Doctor is the Hardest Part appeared first on Direct Relief.

In Santa Barbara County, the Neighborhood Clinics have adopted a multi-tiered approach to battle addiction and promote recovery. The program integrates behavioral health therapy with medically assisted treatment. In order to prevent potential opioid-related injuries, and the clinics provide every patient in their program with a supply of naloxone — a drug that reverses opioid overdoses.

On this episode of the Direct Relief podcast, Dr. Chuck Fenzi reveals a first-hand look at what the Neighborhood Clinics are doing to tackle opioid addiction in their community.

The post To Address the National Opioid Crisis, This Health Center Acts Locally appeared first on Direct Relief.

Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics was holding a dental fair, and the family had come simply for the routine dental work on offer. However, “during the sign-up period, [staff members] discovered that the van was also the house,” said Dr. Charles Fenzi, the health center’s CEO. “They weren’t sure whether they would eat or where they would eat.”

By the end of the day, thanks to the federally qualified health center’s wellness navigators – health workers whose job is to help patients overcome nonmedical barriers, like the care system and access to community resources – the family had housing and a connection to a local food bank.

It’s a perfect microcosm of the care process at the Neighborhood Clinics: Come in for a minor ailment or routine care, and leave with the weight on your shoulders lifted a little.

The name “Santa Barbara” evokes a breezy, sunny enclave that’s home to the laid-back and privileged. But that picture leaves out the one in three people in south Santa Barbara County who are considered low-income and the one in six who live in poverty, according to the health center’s calculations.

It’s primarily this population that SBNC – with eight primary, dental, or integrative health centers in the City of Santa Barbara and neighboring communities – serves. Ninety percent of their patients are low-income.

The health center was formed when three independent clinics in the Santa Barbara area – each formed during the 1970s to provide care to low-income patients in their neighborhoods – decided to join forces. More locations and services have been added on over the years, but the focus on underserved patients and a close relationship with the community remains.

Taking an X-ray View

“The patients we see…come for healthcare, but they also have a number of other issues that impact their health,” said Dr. Andria Ruth, a pediatrician at SBNC. These other issues include insurance status, homelessness, poverty, lack of access to education, food insecurity, and childhood or domestic abuse.

A diabetes diagnosis is rarely just that. When patients come into one of the health center’s clinics, staff ask a series of questions designed to uncover situational or emotional issues that may take a toll on health. “We call it an x-ray” because it involves looking beyond the obvious illness to find what’s lurking underneath, said Mayra Garcia, a wellness navigator.

That means keeping a close eye out for anxiety, depression, and substance abuse disorder, and integrating behavioral health care into treatment for chronic ailments like heart disease and diabetes. “Depression is exquisitely common,” Dr. Fenzi said. “All of us are stressed to the max.”

It also means that SBNC staff work to remove the stressors that separate their patients from good health.

“We have everybody working up to their license: we have behavioral health specialists, we have [registered nurses], wellness navigators, people from the community. They’re bilingual, bicultural, and they’re trained to understand resources in the community,” including the organizations that provide underserved people with housing, childcare, insurance, and food, among other services, Dr. Fenzi said.

As a wellness navigator, it’s Garcia’s job to help underserved people deal with everything from the food bank to insurance paperwork to preschool applications. “Sometimes they don’t even know that some agencies exist,” she explained.

Garcia, like the health center’s other wellness navigators, doesn’t just help patients. Anyone who walks through the health center’s doors and requests assistance will receive it, and Garcia goes door-to-door distributing flyers and talking to residents in low-income neighborhoods about what’s available to them and how the health center can help.

The goal, she said, is to make SBNC “kind of a one-stop shop.”

She also fills out the applications herself. Most forms, she explained, are in English, and some of her patients aren’t literate anyway.

One day, she’s coordinating Section 8 housing for a senior patient or helping someone diagnosed with cancer get funding for surgery. The next, she’s working with a family to obtain medicine, transportation, housing, and educational services.

Stopping Trauma, Before It Starts

Through a new pilot program with the University of California, Santa Barbara, the health center is also working to keep mental health issues from emerging to begin with.

Adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs – such as physical or verbal abuse, a family member with mental illness, or the loss of a parent, regardless of the circumstance, among others – have received a lot of attention in recent years.

Compelling research suggests that people who are exposed to several of these ACEs are more likely to struggle with mental illness, addiction, and a host of physical conditions. Those with particularly high scores are even likely to live significantly shorter lives than average.

Often, ACE scoring is used retrospectively, to identify the traumas to which adults may have been exposed.

But SBNC actively screens both children and their parents for ACEs, identifying at-risk children and assigning their families some combination of a wellness navigator, a therapist, and home visits.

“We decided to work on the skills of the parent, and the interaction between child and parent, as well as whatever concrete needs we could address,” said Dr. Ruth, the pediatrician, who designed the program. With UC Santa Barbara, the health center is trying to figure out which level of intervention is most appropriate through a formal study.

Far from being offended by the screening, patients are often grateful for the intervention. “Most people want to be a good parent, but some people aren’t sure how to do that because there was no modeling in their household,” Dr. Fenzi said.

Research shows that the potential risks of ACEs can be offset by the presence of a caring, stable adult in a child’s life. The goal of the program is to turn parents – often uncertain of how best to guide their children, or struggling to overcome their own difficult childhoods – into precisely those adults.

A Healthy Community

Walk through the SBNC location in Goleta, a smaller city just north of Santa Barbara, and you’ll find yourself surrounded by soothing blues and smooth glass. The halls are quiet and calm. Providers smile and say hello.

“The delivery system that provides care for low-income folks should not be different in its quality or its presentation” than the health care of those lucky enough to have great PPOs and concierge doctors, Dr. Fenzi said.

The clinicians bring impressive pedigrees to the table. Dr. Ruth, for example, graduated from Harvard Medical School and did her residency at Boston Children’s Hospital. “I wanted to work for a population that I felt might need the most help, where I could make the most impact,” she explained.

SBNC is also supported by local philanthropy efforts – including Direct Relief, which provides medicines and supplies that help defray the health center’s costs. The organization contributed more than $1.2 million worth of medical goods in 2018.

But despite extensive community outreach, including service announcements on local TV and radio, most patients come to the health center through word of mouth. It’s impressive, then, that SBNC treats about 10% of south Santa Barbara county’s residents.

Dr. Fenzi is determined to reach as many people as possible. “You cannot have a healthy community if everybody in your community does not have access to good healthcare,” he said.

The post A Health Center Looks Beneath the Surface… And Dives Right In appeared first on Direct Relief.

California renewed an 1115 federal waiver to implement Medi-Cal 2020 last year. Under the waiver and a $90 million grant over the next two years, counties will act as operators of a managed care plan system, allowing more access to care for Medicaid recipients and resources for doctors to become trained for medically assisted treatment (MAT) programs. Healthcare professionals said it’s imperative to create more access, but are fearful federal changes may affect health coverage for substance abusers and Medicaid patients in the future.

California, which expanded Medicaid under the ACA to include 3,824,774 more residents, is adopting the Vermont Hub and Spoke model to combat the opioid epidemic. This model is an intertwining of existing practices to treat people from a regional level in a state that has more substance abuse treatment centers than any other state. Stakeholders, like providers, state healthcare officials, doctors and substance users say there aren’t enough. Of the licensed narcotic treatment programs in California, most are located in Los Angeles County.

The map above shows which California counties have implemented substance abuse treatment plans. (Map by Olivia Lewis for Direct Relief)

Marlies Perez, chief of substance use disorder and compliance for the California Department of Health Care Services, said the previous system was also difficult to navigate. Some treatment centers were at capacity or were too expensive for people seeking help. Potential patients who aren’t immediately served rarely return once the practice has vacancies.

“For someone ready to seek help, we need to get them quickly,” Perez said. “So, if it’s not organized they may get frustrated and say ‘Forget it, I changed my mind’.”

Santa Barbara County, where Direct Relief is based, submitted a plan and has been approved by the state. The 64-page document includes an explanation of the county’s collaborative process, current service gaps and a referral program.

“I think everybody that can get involved in this endeavor should,” said Dr. Charles Fenzi of the Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinic. “It’s going to be important.”

Though somewhat controversial, doctors are being encouraged to register patients for MAT programs. Through a Pfizer donation, Direct Relief distributed more than 70,000 doses of the opioid overdose reversal drug, naloxone, across the country, including to MAT supporters. The Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics are one organization to receive the donation.

Fenzi is one of two doctors in the Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinic organization certified to treat substance use disorder with suboxone (a mild opioid that alleviates the pain from withdrawal). There are over 1,100 substance abuse treatment centers in California, and less than 200 are licensed narcotic treatment programs.

The Goleta location of the Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics is one of them.

Perez said the practice of treating opioid addiction with a less severe opioid is controversial, because it’s stigmatized. Healthcare professionals who are against the practice of giving substance abusers pills to control their addiction prefer a 12-step abstinence model, which Fenzi says have proven to be most successful for alcoholism — not substance abuse. He also knows doctors who are against MAT programs.

“They feel like it’s cheating,” Fenzi said.

The doctor hopes more clinicians will take the MAT certification to offer the service, specifically psychiatrists.

“Drug abuse and opioid use syndrome is a very complicated disease, because it changes the brain and people are dying from it,” Fenzi said. “That’s part of our community, and if we are going to have a healthy community, we have to provide for all segments.”

Aegis Treatment Centers, LLC, is the largest substance use disorder organization in California with 31 clinics across the state. The organization is a proud proponent of MAT programming, although patient retention is low.

The program requires daily methadone treatment and counseling. State regulation says patients can take home up to 28 days-worth of methadone pills before having to go back to the doctor. This treatment method can last months or years. The timeline is dependent upon the patient’s intensity with abuse.

“We have to get them into medication assisted treatment,” said Matthew Adelman, an Aegis representative. “And have it be at an earlier stage in the addiction timeline.”

Aegis also accepts Medicaid patients, while many other programs do not. Over 50 percent of the company’s patients are registered for Medi-Cal.

With threats from the federal government to diminish Medicaid, healthcare experts like Naderah Pourat at University of California, Los Angeles, said states may have to tighten their budgets. She said it could be a “really big blow to a state like California.”

“The state has to decide can they take on these additional 1 million people,” Pourat said.

The UCLA expert said there was “tremendous outreach” to enroll about 1.5 million low-income individuals in California’s Medicaid program.

Clinics like Fenzi’s are required to take anyone who walks into their office. The thought of financial cuts to the Medicaid program are troublesome.

“I can expect financial hardship (for patients), should that pass,” Fenzi said. “The proposed removal of essential health benefits is very concerning to us as well.”

For now, the state still has grant money to work with, and until future funds are determined, healthcare officials said they are doing their best to reduce the opioid epidemic.

“We don’t have all the answers that’s for sure, but we have made a lot of strides forward,” Perez said. “It’s an exciting time, with a lot of great work being done for Californians that suffer from this disease.”

(Editor’s note: This story is the fourth in a series. Earlier stories can be seen below.)

Further Reading:

‘Heroin Was Home to Me’: One Woman’s Journey from Addict to ‘Champion of Recovery’

Naloxone Reversing Overdose in California’s Coastal Communities

Confronting Opioid Crisis Strains Community Health Resources

The post California Shares Responsibility with Counties for Substance Abuse Treatment appeared first on Direct Relief.

As the response enters this new phase and residents make plans to return to their homes, medical professionals also are shifting their focus toward longer-term health concerns that range from exposure to black mold and respiratory infections to tetanus.

Tetanus can enter the body through a break in the skin, according to Dr. Charles Fenzi, Chief Medical Officer of the Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics. Anyone who expects to be involved in cleanup efforts is advised to have their vaccination.

The Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics will be administering Tdap vaccines, donated by Direct Relief in coordination with the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department, to anyone exposed to flood water and debris after last week’s deadly mudslide.

A list of clinics where people can receive vaccinations free of charge can be found here.

The Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics Go Above and Beyond

With Highway 101, the main north-south route into Santa Barbara, closed due to the mudslide, Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinic staff have been riding the train or taking a ferry to work, said Tiana Riskowski, who works with neighborhood clinics.

At the Eastside Clinic, Dr. Anupama Sharma had just shown up to her shift on Tuesday morning. The doctor, who has worked at the clinic for 11 years, lives in Carpinteria and is blocked from getting to the clinic by the Montecito closure of Highway 101.

That didn’t stop her from arriving to start her patient visits. She took the ferry to the Santa Barbara Harbor and then traveled to the clinic.

“I want to be at work,” she said.

At the Goleta clinic, a group of staff had just arrived at a nearby train station on Tuesday morning, and a staff member was leaving to pick them up so they could begin their day of work.

The community has been in an extended state of disaster response for more than six weeks, with the Thomas Fire breaking out in December. The fast-moving fire also proved challenging for staff trying to get to work, where many patients were seeking care for respiratory issues exacerbated by the smoky air.

When a palm tree farm next to Highway 101 caught on fire, “we had employees literally driving through the flames to get to work,” Riskowski said. “They are dedicated to getting to here.”

Choosing to work at the clinics already signifies dedication to public health, she said. On a good day, “just to be here, you have to be passionate.”

But again and again, when disaster strikes or a hardship is encountered, clinic staff go into overdrive.

“When stuff hits the fan, it just renews their passion,” Riskowski said. “They inspire me every day.”

Further Reading

KEYT Free Tetanus Shots to Mudslide Victims

KEYT Direct Relief Donates ATVs for Flood Debris Search

Sacramento Bee

The post Local Clinicians Respond to Mounting Health Risks After Montecito Mudslide appeared first on Direct Relief.

Tdap is a combination vaccine that protects against tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis (whooping cough) – three potentially life-threatening bacterial diseases. While diphtheria and pertussis spread from person to person, tetanus enters the body through cuts, scratches, or wounds.

The risk of wounds increases following a flood or mudslide and during cleanup, thereby increasing the risk of tetanus.

For this reason, residents and others involved in cleanup activities are advised to have their tetanus vaccination up-to-date. Individuals 10 years of age and older who have not received a tetanus vaccine in the past five years are eligible for this program.

Direct Relief is making available its stockpile of vaccine, as well as any other medical essentials that may be needed, to assist in this emergency.

Staff from the Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics will administer the Direct Relief-donated vaccines between 9:00 am and 6:00 pm, Tuesday through Friday, at the following locations:

Eastside Neighborhood Clinic
915 N. Milpas St.
Santa Barbara, CA 93103

Westside Neighborhood Clinic
628 W. Micheltorena St.
Santa Barbara, CA 93101

Goleta Neighborhood Clinic
5580 Calle Real
Goleta, CA 93111

Isla Vista Neighborhood Clinic
970 Emarcadero Del Mar
Isla Vista, CA 93117

Additional locations and hours will be announced this week.

For more information on the Tdap Vaccine, please visit https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/vis/vis-statements/tdap.html

Further Reading

Direct Relief donates new ATV’s to local agencies for flood debris search

The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue team used the new ATV on Saturday to support search efforts.

Devastating Floods Rip Through Fire Impacted California Communities

CAStorm – Firefighters rescue a girl who was trapped in Montecito following heavy rain and mudflow in the 300 block of Hot Springs Road. pic.twitter.com/tfUw0cDbXx – SBCFireInfo (@EliasonMike) January 9, 2018 Powerful rains washed over fire-denuded hillsides early Tuesday morning, creating deadly and devastating flooding for communities across Southern California.

My disaster relief agency is based near Montecito. Now disaster has hit home.

Because the nonprofit humanitarian-aid organization I work for specializes in providing medical assistance to people in need – and works in every U.S. state and territory and 80 countries – the last six months have been busy.

Here’s How You Can Help Victims of the California Mudslides

Just weeks after one of California’s largest wildfires in history swept through Santa Barbara County, residents are dealing with another environmental disaster as heavy rains sent mud and boulders sliding down hills into homes in the coastal town of Montecito.

The post In Aftermath of Deadly Mudslides, Direct Relief and Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics Offer Free Tetanus Vaccines to Responders, Cleanup Workers, and Residents appeared first on Direct Relief.

The teenager told her mother she had the flu.

The 16-year-old locked herself in her New Rochelle, New York, bedroom and spent days vomiting, shaking and sweating.

These were flu-like symptoms, but the health condition was a lie to cover what would turn into a life-long struggle. Her life didn’t start out that way.

Janice Shea was an intelligent child. She was enrolled in an academically gifted program which placed her in classrooms with students two and three years older than herself. Shea was the kind of kid who loved to write existentialist plays and wear dark clothing. She loved drama club and afterschool sports. It was at school, with a friend who had brought it from home, that she first tried a substance to “enhance their creative edge.”

Though Shea did well in class, if it weren’t for extracurricular activities, she may not have gone to school at all. But she didn’t want to go home either.

Her second-grade teacher, Mrs. Eilbert, recognized there was an issue at home and looked after Shea as often as she could. The young girl knew she would have to leave home before becoming an adult, but New York law required her to stay in school until age 16. Shea waited for her 16^th birthday, self-medicating and avoiding the abusive household her mother had created.

Because Shea knew she wouldn’t be able to afford to live away from home in her condition, the teenager decided to detox from her four-year heroin addiction, alone in her bedroom, before leaving for good.

“Heroin was home to me,” Shea said. “…When I found heroin it took all the pain away and it made life tolerable, and I was home, and I stayed there.”

Shea, now 64 years old, has not used heroin in 33 years. She used 12-step meeting methods in her recovery, which is no easy task. It’s part of the reason she supports medically assisted treatment programs and the use of the overdose-reversing drug, naloxone.

Dr. Charles Camillo Fenzi, of the Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics’ Goleta Neighborhood Clinic, hired Shea to help with the clinic’s MAT program. The clinic also uses a naloxone donation from Pfizer and Direct Relief in their emergency kits, specifically for patients before they even enter the treatment program.

Fenzi said Shea’s success is highly unusual.

“This person may be a champion of recovery,” Fenzi said.

Shea’s the current behavioral health care coordinator at the Goleta Neighborhood Clinic, where she helps patients overcome substance use disorders. Her past experience with addiction has made her essential to the practice because she can connect with patients at a genuine level.

Shea’s early introduction and addiction to opioid drugs is not uncommon. From 2007 to 2012, there was an upward trend among persons aged 12 and older in the United States who had used heroin in the past month.

Though Shea was given heroin directly, others are introduced initially to opioid prescription painkillers by their doctors, or by taking painkillers that were prescribed to parents, relatives or siblings. The rate of opiate prescription painkiller use began to rise in 2000. Opiate prescription drugs like hydrocodone, codeine and fentanyl are highly addictive and can cause users to overdose and die if not taken with caution.

“The misuse of prescription opioids started increasing in about 2000 and it peaked around 2012,” said Kimberly Johnson of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Johnson, the director of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment at SAMHSA, said opioid overdose death rates have increased due to the introduction of fentanyl and carfentanil (previously used as an elephant tranquilizer) which is 10,000 times more powerful than morphine and can be mixed with street drugs like heroin, many times with deadly consequences.

In 2015, over 33,000 people died from an opioid overdose. 1,966 of those people were in California. Additionally, almost 13,000 people nationwide died from heroin overdoses in the same year.

In an effort to save lives, healthcare providers began requesting two specific drugs—naloxone, an overdose reversal drug, and suboxone, a supplemental detox treatment.

SAMHSA recommends medically assisted treatment with behavioral therapy for substance addiction treatment; however, holistic treatment wasn’t popular when Shea needed it most.

Shea has seen five friends die from overdoses after using opiate drugs. She’s overdosed too. Sometimes others were around to pack her body in ice to keep her alive, others considered places to dump her body if she didn’t wake up. Sometimes, she awoke days later, alone and in a pool of her own vomit.

“I’ve had more overdoses than I can count,” Shea said. “I have no idea why I’m still breathing while others are not.”

Many of those overdoses were in Northern Vermont, where she continued to use heroin daily throughout her 20s. But she was a functional addict, the kind who contributed to society, working with the New England court system to set up group homes for children and teenagers.

It wasn’t until Shea was 29 years old and pregnant with her first child that she realized she couldn’t stop. She failed, repeatedly, until her ex-husband offered her help in Los Angeles.

“I didn’t believe addicts who claimed to be clean — they were lying,” Shea said.

Shea had trouble finding a treatment center in California that would accept her. She was malnourished, pregnant, poor, and didn’t know she had insurance at the time.

“I didn’t believe I could stay clean if I didn’t get locked up,” Shea said. “But I couldn’t get any treatment plans to take me because I looked like a walking malpractice suit.”

Insurance is key to whether a person can afford drug treatment or not. Almost 20 percent of people under 65 in California lacked insurance in 2017, according to County Health Rankings and Roadmaps. Additionally, just having insurance doesn’t guarantee affordability.

Although Shea was insured, she couldn’t afford the co-pay for treatment.

The alternative was a 12-step program, an anonymous network of support for addicts. Before and after the birth of her only child, Shea went to three and four meetings a day. She relied on other substance users who were seeking help and kept a small social circle of understanding and helpful people.

Support is part of the reason the Goleta clinic is trying to build its treatment program. Though patients are given medication to assist the pain from withdrawal, Fenzi said it’s important for patients to receive behavioral health help simultaneously.

Due to her experience, Shea’s presence in the clinic has been beneficial to the practice.

“Anyone who walks in the door and kind of starts with an aggressive approach … [Shea] always kind of jumps in and de-escalates the situation for us,” said Angie Perez, clinic manager at the Goleta clinic. 

The post ‘Heroin Was Home to Me’: One Woman’s Journey from Addict to ‘Champion of Recovery’ appeared first on Direct Relief.

Yennyfer is one of nearly 60 kids who received free dental care this month as part of the Healthy Smiles program, coordinated by Direct Relief in collaboration with the Sunrise Rotary Club and a number of other Santa Barbara County organizations supporting the effort.

Access to pediatric dental care is important as oral disease is the most common chronic childhood disease and can lead to physical and psychological disabilities as well as significant morbidity in adulthood.

To help prevent this, the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry recommends a child have their first dental visit by age one, followed by a check-up every six months in order to prevent cavities and other dental problems.

However, many families cannot afford the cost of dental care, leaving children like Yennyfer without regular cleanings and check-ups.

The goal of Healthy Smiles is to screen, identify, treat, and educate these children to ensure that their current dental problems do not develop into more complex health conditions. Direct Relief annually holds the Healthy Smiles clinics during February, National Children’s Dental Health Month.

Susann Casort, clinic manager at Eastside Dental Clinic, said that the children who most often fall through the cracks are those who are undocumented. “Through no fault of their own, they don’t have coverage.”

To make sure these children and others who do not have insurance for different reasons can receive care through Healthy Smiles, nurses and family advocates at the local schools identify and screen children for need based on existing decay and lack of insurance. These advocates also help the students access follow up treatment after the clinic, if needed.

In addition to medical treatment, families receive bilingual oral health education when they arrive at the clinic, providing them the information they need to ensure proper care.

Each family also takes home a dental hygiene kit containing toothbrushes, toothpaste, and floss, which were donated by many health care manufacturers to Direct Relief and packed by local volunteers.

“We have instances where there is a family with only one toothbrush that they’re all sharing. It’s helpful to be able to provide a whole kit to the kids when they leave,” said Casort.

Direct Relief regularly supports the Eastside Dental Clinic with these kits and other medicines and supplies to help them treat patients in need year-round.

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