In West Virginia, it has been found that not everyone is treated the same. Those who have survived opioid overdoses don’t seem to get appropriate aftercare. Over ninety percent of people did not receive the recommended treatment.
This seems to fall in line with some hard facts about West Virginia. They have the highest opioid death rate in the United States. More than that, it is four times higher than the national average. That is ridiculous.
It seems that only a whopping ten perfect received the care they needed. The care they deserved.
These methods included medications like buprenorphine or counseling for their mental health.
An opioid overdose that doesn’t end in a fatality is a chance. A chance to help a person seek treatment and change their lives. But instead, in West Virginia, they’re just fixed up and let go.
A study done showed that 12 months after an overdose only 7.3 percent of patients were taking a medication to help them.
More than that, over half of those patients were diagnosed with a dual illness. That means they had a mental illness along with their addiction. That should mean they received extra care. But they did not.
These people were diagnosed with bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety or even schizophrenia. They did not receive the care they so needed. They did not receive any improvement in their care.
These studies focused specifically on West Virginia. It proved that it is important and it needs to be focused on there. More needs to be done and they need to be better for their communities.
People talk about wanting death rates to go down. Or they talk about how it is a crisis and need help. But then they don’t follow any sort of procedure that could actually help people. Instead, they let addicts fall down the rabbit hole.