Pubdate: Wed, 26 Jun 2002
Source: Kingsport Times-News (TN)
Copyright: 2002 Kingsport Publishing Corporation
Contact:  http://www.timesnews.net/index.cgi
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1437
Note:  Will not publish letters in print editions from online users who do 
not reside in print circulation area, unless they are former residents or 
have some current connection to Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee.
Author: Joellen Weedman
Note: Chelsea Shoun contributed to this report.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?136 (Methadone)

METHADONE CLINIC THAT JOHNSON CITY DIDN'T WANT OK'D, SHOULD BE OPEN IN SIX 
MONTHS

NASHVILLE - The Tennessee Health Facilities Commission approved the Johnson 
City Addiction Research and Treatment Center with a 8-0-1 vote in Nashville 
Wednesday.

The clinic - to be located at 200 W. Fairview Ave. in Johnson City - will 
offer methadone treatment for a projected 250 people in its first two years 
of operation.

Janet Givens Jones, a member of the HFC from Johnson City, abstained.

"We're not that picture of a methadone clinic everybody has - we're very 
comprehensive," said Rusty Titsworth, who will be the director of 
operations at the clinic, citing counseling and other services to be 
offered by the clinic.

Methadone is a legal, synthetic opioid that is used as a substitute for 
heroin and other addictive painkillers. Regular oral consumption of the 
drug blocks heroin withdrawal symptoms, one of the biggest hurdles for 
addicts to overcome when they try to quit the drug.

Johnson City groups including Frontier Health, the James H. Quillen College 
of Medicine at East Tennessee State University, the Chamber of Commerce, 
Central Baptist Church, St. John's Episcopal Church and Watauga Insurance 
filed opposition to the clinic.

"We didn't feel there was a need for this clinic," said Dr. Ronald D. 
Franks, ETSU dean of medicine and vice president for health affairs at 
ETSU. "Patients in the area are very well taken care of without methadone."

Franks said he and representatives from Frontier Health and the Chamber of 
Commerce testified at the hearing Wednesday that the clinic will bring in 
people from outside the area that will require more services - social, 
financial and other medical services - than the clinic will offer.

"We're staffed and prepared to deal with the people in Johnson City, but 
it's our anticipation that people will travel some distance and take 
advantage of other services - we're not funded or staffed to absorb those 
additional patients," said Franks.

He noted the clinic will be located across the street from the Downtown 
Clinic, which treats homeless people and other indigent patients for free 
on an "already razor-thin margin."

Titsworth said there are already more than 200 people traveling out of the 
area for methadone treatment and some of those people can now be treated 
locally.

He said it his organization's goal to work with other health care providers 
as well as faith-based groups in the community.

"Our goal is to get people help and get them drug free," he said. "We're 
going to be a high-class, high-quality place."

He said many patients at other clinics in the state he works with have 
tried inpatient treatment, but found themselves "in a cycle" they couldn't 
break.

The clinic is expected to open in six months.

Titsworth said the group will hire six counselors, three nurses and a 
physician.

He said a phone number will be available in coming months for potential 
patients to call and be put on a waiting list.

Franks said he and others opposed to clinic could not say yet if they plan 
to appeal the HFC's decision.

He did say since the same group has a clinic in Nashville that works 
closely with the medical school at Vanderbilt he will "see if there's some 
way we can work together, assuming they do provide a high-quality service."

Friends of Old Downtown - a group working to revitalize the area - say 
they're worried the clinic will hinder development downtown.

The group's treasurer, Ed Gibbons, said the mere connotation of a methadone 
clinic is sure to keep some people from coming downtown to shop, live and play.

Gibbons also owns Watauga Insurance.

"That's a shame," he said Wednesday afternoon. "Here we are trying to 
revitalize downtown and something like this moves into our neighborhood. It 
will only compound itself."

Gibbons said the Health Facilities Commission's decision surprised him 
since methadone clinics had previously been turned down in Kingsport and 
Bristol.

While Gibbons said he was not opposed to methadone treatment and felt those 
who need it deserve to receive the drug, he felt it would be better located 
elsewhere.

"It could easily be put somewhere else. There are buildings in North 
Johnson City," he said.

Johnson City city leaders have also spoken out against the downtown clinic. 
At a public hearing on June 14 City Manager Mike West said the clinic would 
negatively impact the downtown area.

Titsworth said many patients will receive treatment very early in the 
morning, since most of them will have jobs.

"We'll be open so early, nobody will know we're there," he said.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth