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Crouse Hospital Opens Larger Addiction Treatment Center Crouse Hospital Opens New, Larger Addiction Treatment Center

New facility can treat more patients as pandemic sees addiction numbers rise

By Julia Skeval

Darasha Singleton: Millions of people are struggling with addiction across the country and here in Onondaga County. Julia Skeval takes us to a new resource opening here in Syracuse to get those experiencing addiction the help they need.

Julia Skeval: These brand new classrooms and exams rooms won’t sit empty much longer. Crouse Hospital is opening their new addiction treatment center this Saturday, June 19th. The center’s director Monika Taylor says building a larger space came from a noticeable need in the community.

Monika Taylor: But this facility will allow us to continue to grow services and meet the growing needs in our community for services.

Skeval: Crouse outgrew their former addiction treatment space on South Crouse Avenue in Syracuse. The new building on Erie Boulevard can treat over three-hundred patients at a time and will offer new services like primary care, shower rooms and a clothing closet.

Taylor: The other thing that we are able to offer here is a life skills lab. Many of our patients have deficits in areas of daily living and so we can teach meal preparation skills, laundry skills as well as job writing skills in that dedicated space.

Skeval: Addiction treatment centers like these have renewed relevance as addiction-related numbers soared in Onondaga County during the pandemic, especially opioid addiction.

Mariah Senecal-Riley: This past year, 2020, was the worst for overdose related fatalities that we’ve seen over the last 10 years.

Skeval: Senecal-Riley says the uptick in opioid usage and overdoses over the last 12 months can be partially attributed to several things.

Senecal-Riley: The interruption of normal treatment and recovery support services, being mostly alone, increased unemployment, isolation, despair.

Skeval: Taylor says Crouse’s new center is ready to treat any patient struggling with opioid addiction.

Taylor: Getting them into treatment faster is the top priority for us at this point and the goal is to get them started on medication if that is what they need on their first treatment visit here with us.

Singleton: Crouse funded the new addiction treatment center mainly through state grants. The project cost $17 million overall.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) — Crouse Hospital will open its new addiction treatment services center to patients this Saturday. The center will be able to serve 300 people at once and features dedicated spaces for men’s and women’s programs, primary care exam rooms and a life skills lab.

The new building on Erie Boulevard will be almost double the size of Crouse’s former addiction treatment headquarters, located on South Crouse Avenue. The additional space will not only be used to offer more resources and healthcare opportunities, but to treat the growing number of people struggling with addiction.

“This facility will allow us to continue to grow services and meet the growing need in our community for services,” said Monika Taylor,  the director of addiction treatment services at Crouse Hospital.

The new center will open over a year into the COVID-19 pandemic. The past 12 months saw a substantial increase in the number of people experiencing alcohol or drug addiction — especially opioid addiction — in Onondaga County and across the country.

According to the Substance Use Initiatives director at the Onondaga County Health Department, Mariah Senecal-Riley, 2020 was the worst year for opioid-related fatalities in over a decade. The Centers for Disease Control reported more than 88,000 drug overdose deaths nationally between August 2019 and August 2020.

While Senecal-Riley said more research is required to draw a definite connection between the pandemic and increased opioid abuse in Onondaga County, she said circumstances created by the pandemic certainly didn’t help those dealing with opioid issues.

Senecal-Riley listed the cancellation of in-person treatment programs, the increased amount of time people were spending alone or in isolation and unemployment as factors that worked against people with drug abuse problems.

Onondaga County doesn’t offer opioid treatment services themselves and instead refers people to centers like Crouse Hospital’s. The county does, however, hold initiatives like Narcan training and distribution events. Narcan is a medicine used to treat suspected opioid overdoses.

Taylor said that in 2020, her addiction treatment department saw the rate of people seeking help for opioid addiction increase more than any other type of addiction-related problem.

“We saw about 950 patients [for opioid abuse] last year, which was over 100 more than the year before.”

Helping people struggling with opioid abuse is one of the new treatment center’s top priorities, according to Taylor.

“[Our goal] is to get them treatment faster. The goal is to get them started on medication within their first treatment visit here with us.”

 

 

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