Health

Opioids: Turning the Tide in the Crisis

00000174-c556-d691-a376-cdd69e980000Day after day, week after week, the headlines in Northeast Ohio and across much of the country contain news of tragic loss: lives lost to opioids. It’s a problem that knows no bounds: geography, race, gender, level of education or income.The problem took on new urgency this summer as the powerful elephant sedative, Carfentanil, began hitting the streets. First responders armed with their only weapon, the overdose antidote Naloxone, have struggled to keep up with what’s become an overwhelming problem. It’s an issue that’s straining public and social resources. What has become clear is that business as usual is not going to fix the problem.WKSU news has been covering the unfolding crisis. Tuesdays during Morning Edition, the WKSU news team digs even deeper. WKSU reporters will examine what’s led us here and what might be done to turn the tide. Support for Opioids: Turning the Tide in the Crisis comes from Wayne Savings Community Bank, Kent State University Office of Continuing and Distance Education, Hometown Grocery Delivery, Mercy Medical Center, AxessPointe Community Health Center, Community Support Services, Inc., Medina County District Library and Hudson Community First.00000174-c556-d691-a376-cdd69e980001

Once a Rehab Center for TB, Edwin Shaw Site Gets a Role in Battling the Opioid Epidemic

Ideastream Public Media | By M.L. Schultze

Published October 25, 2017 at 6:18 PM EDT

Summit County Executive Ilene Shapiro is asking County Council to turn 25 acres of what used to be the Edwin Shaw rehab hospital over to two nonprofits – to help respond to the county’s newly declared crisis. WKSU’s M.L. Schultze reports the agencies plan to convert the property into an addiction-treatment facility.

The rehab center in the Akron suburb of Lakemore was built in 1915 to treat the epidemic of the day: tuberculosis. Shapiro says it evolved over the decades, and the site is ideally situated for today’s crisis.

“It sits in a community that is accustomed to being able to make a difference in people lives. Through the tuberculosis issue, between the drug and alcohol addiction that happened over the years. And it just seemed fitting that that was the place. They were looking for a place that was almost a little bit of a sanctuary away from the hubbub.”

The nonprofits, Restore Addiction Recovery and Hope United, plan to offer inpatient and aftercare.

Edwin Shaw closed in 2009 and the buildings were demolished last year.