Pubdate: Mon, 15 Apr 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
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?136 (Methadone)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

MEDICAL GROUPS OPPOSE PROPOSED JOHNSON CITY METHADONE CLINIC

JOHNSON CITY - A proposed methadone clinic in Johnson City will face 
opposition from other medical groups in town.

"From our perspective it doesn't make sense," said Dr. Ronald D. Franks, 
ETSU dean of medicine and vice president for health affairs at the James H. 
Quillen College of Medicine at East Tennessee State University.

Franks said he and representatives from Frontier Health and the James H. 
Quillen Veterans Affairs Medical Center at Mountain Home have met about the 
certificate of need filed with the Tennessee Health Facilities Commission 
in Nashville last month to open the Johnson City Addiction Research and 
Treatment clinic.

"First of all, we are all very committed to taking care of patients with 
substance abuse problems and have established programs to do so - and we do 
it without methadone," Franks said.

Medical school officials are planning to file an official letter of 
opposition to the project.

"We'll testify if necessary," said Franks.

The Quillen College of Medicine, Frontier Health and the VA all operate 
addiction treatment programs and say they are successful without the use of 
methadone.

"We run a very large substance abuse treatment program, and we see no need 
for a methadone treatment program," said Dr. Carl Gerber, VA Medical Center 
director. "If we saw a need we'd have one for the veterans."

Dr. Randall Jessee, senior vice president of specialty services at Frontier 
Health, agrees.

"The alternatives we use are abstinence based, and they are effective," he 
said. "It's harder to detox someone on methadone than it is someone on heroin."

Franks and Jessee said the medical community in Johnson City has chosen a 
"more comprehensive approach" for substance abuse treatment that calls for 
patients to look at "what led to the addiction in the first place."

"Methadone, as it turns out, is really a substitute of one addictive 
substance for another - it's sometimes necessary, but not ideal," said 
Franks. "Non-addictive medicines can be used to treat a person who is 
having problems."

Health care officials cite other concerns such as an influx of people 
needing the treatment.

"The problem with methadone clinics is there's a small percent of people in 
your own community who need it, and if it's established you have people 
travel in from where there isn't a clinic," he said.

In addition to counseling and mental health services, Franks said 
additional social services would also be needed.

"Not that they aren't entitled to it, but that means there are fewer 
services available for people in our own area," he said. "The addition of a 
methadone clinic would be a net liability rather than an asset."

Jessee said Frontier Health also has questions about how numbers on the 
certificate of need application were determined.

The application predicts the proposed clinic would treat 175 patients in 
the first year and 250 patients in the second year.

"We don't know them, and we don't know what kind of care they will really 
provide," he said.

Jessee also said the counseling regimen proposed in the application is "not 
even close to being effective."

"They don't even have a family program that I'm aware of, and you have to 
treat the whole family."

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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager