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Maternal addiction center gets funds

Cambria OKs money to provide support to opioid-addicted moms

EBENSBURG — The Cambria County commissioners approved funding to support a maternal addiction resource center at a Johnstown hospital to help tackle the opioid crisis.

The approved $286,274 service contract with Conemaugh Me­morial Medical Center along Franklin Street would fund staff who would provide inpatient rehabilitation and other services to pregnant and postpartum women struggling with substance abuse.

With the funding approved Thursday, the hospital would hire three maternal addiction navigators, a certified recovery specialist, a program coordinator and an administrative assistant, according to Frederick Oliveros, the county’s drug and alcohol program administrator.

Oliveros said the hospital would also purchase bus tokens for patients who need transportation to appointments.

“Given the opioid epidemic, the hospital was aware just by the experience of the sheer number of children who were being born at the hospital with neonatal abstinence syndrome,” Oliveros said of the need for a maternal addiction resource center. “We determined that staff was needed to specifically work with that population.”

Cambria County Drug Coalition Executive Director Ronna Yablonski said the need for a maternal addiction resource center was clearly evident due to data indicators and stories of opioid abuse including the 2016 death of a 5-month-old infant after both her parents overdosed.

“We are confident that this will be an asset,” Yablonski said. “And it will also play a major role in stopping the cycle of addiction. It also plays a major role in stigma reduction — in opening the doors for individuals in desperate times.

“The common thread is that substance use disorder does not discriminate. And when afflicted, you need sup­port. You need help,” she added. “And we want to provide every source of help that we can and open every door.”

A grant proposal by the county drug and alcohol program said Cambria County had 65 newborns on Medicaid born with NAS in 2016, a jump from 59 newborns in 2015, citing the state’s Data Dash­board. For both years, Cambria County had the second-highest number of newborns born with NAS of the eight fourth-class counties in Pennsylvania.

The Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Coun­­cil reported the county had a rate of 26.2 per 1,000 newborns with NAS from 2016-17, exceeding the state­wide average of 15 per 1,000 newborns, the proposal states.

The county Children and Youth Services also reportedly received 88 reports of drug-exposed infants from March through December 2017 and 97 reports from January through June 2018. Only about half of the wo­men involved in those re­ports were receiving substance abuse treatment, CYS estimates.

Oliveros said the Cam­bria County Drug and Al­cohol program was awarded a total of $1.3 million for the ma­ternal addiction re­source center.

The $286,274.17 amount was the first round of grant awards.

He added the long-term vision of the project is to create a “one-stop shop” or hub for comprehensive treat­ment services including sub­stance use disorder counseling, case management referrals, recovery support and outcome tracking for pregnant women and women who gave birth who have substance use disorders.

In other business, the commissioners also ap­proved the purchase of glass panels at the 1st Sum­mit Arena at the Cambria County War Memorial, a $147,596.30 bid for a sanitary sewer testing project to State Pipe Services Inc. and an agreement between Wind­ber Fire Company No. 1 and Northern EMS.

Mirror Staff Writer Shen Wu Tan is at 946-7457.

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