Rep. Tom Golden

 Wednesday, 4/24/2013

 

 

Detox center at Tewksbury Hospital to open Friday, April 26, 2013
By Chris Scott

TEWKSBURY — State Rep. Thomas Golden will finally see years of persist­ence pay off.

The alcohol- and- drug- detox center at Tewksbury Hospital — closed in Decem­ber 2010 because it was uneconomical for its operator — is scheduled to open its doors Friday under new leadership.

It’s the only facility of its kind in the Greater Lowell region, so reopening it has been a priority of Golden’s from the day it closed.

An open house is scheduled Friday between 8- 11 a. m. The facility, which will be operated by Lahey Health Behavioral Services, is at 365 East St., in the Saunders Building.

Golden and Lahey administrators announced a deal in mid- February. An open house had been scheduled for a few weeks later.

However, it was postponed when it was learned renovations would take longer than first planned.

The facility was formerly operated by the Lowell Community Health Center. However, when operational costs became to much, the health center sev­ered ties with the facility.

Making it more financially appealing for Lahey, said Golden, is the state increased the center’s capacity from 24 to 32 inpatients while increasing the daily reimbursement rate to about $ 286 from $ 221. Lahey will manage the center for three years under a $ 9 million contract with the state.

Golden... has pushed for detox center

Lahey is a private, nonprofit, human- service agency that provides mental- health, addiction- treatment, and community- education and prevention services to residents of Greater Boston, the North Shore and the Merrimack Valley. The health center’s decision to close the facility meant that about 160 patients per month — mostly between the ages of 21 and 25, and addicted to heroin and other substances — had to switch to outpatient care or enroll in the nearest inpatient facilities in Boston, Danvers or Worcester.

About 50 employees, including 16 full- timers, lost their jobs at the facility.

The new center will employ about 48 and will be overseen by former Lowell General Hospital Dr. Shorta Yuasa, who will serve as medical director.

The inpatient program lasts about a week and is followed by three more steps: placements in a residential treatment program, an outpatient treatment regimen and, lastly, in a sober house.

Massachusetts has one of the highest rates of narcotics abuse in the country, particularly among users of such opiates such as Oxycontin and heroin.

From 2002 to 2007, there were 3,265 opiate- related deaths in the state. In 2006, there were more than 23,000 hospital visits because of drug overdoses.