OPIATE ADDICTS FIND FEWER HOSPITAL-RUN DETOX BEDS AVAILABLE

Addicts who overdose on heroin or other opiates are likely to land
first in a hospital emergency room, where doctors can often save them
from brain damage or death.

For many of those who want to get clean, the next step is a
hospital-run drug detoxification program. There, patients are
physically and emotionally prepared to move into a long-term recovery program.

But with fewer detox beds available, some of Long Island's
hardest-core opiate addicts are finding it harder to take that
crucial step. St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center in Smithtown shut
its 12-bed unit in July 2005, and Southside Hospital in Bay Shore
shut its 10-bed unit in April.

According to the New York State Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse
Services, these closures followed two others at Long Island hospitals
in 2002 and 2003. All told, the number of beds reserved for the
sickest addicts has dropped 69 percent in the last four years, from
81 beds in 2002 to just 25 in 2006.

Meanwhile, admissions at Long Island's two remaining medically
managed detox units, at Nassau University Medical Center in East
Meadow and Eastern Long Island Hospital in Greenport, as well as less
medically-intensive programs at two other hospitals, have increased
an average of 42 percent over the same period. These detox units
provide high-level care for addicts who have especially difficult
problems and require more intensive treatment.

The reasons for the decrease in detox beds is part financial, part
philosophical. While hospital administrators say they need the beds
for more widely used services, drug addiction specialists see the
closures as part of a national movement to put more resources into
long-term rehabilitation. Many of them agree that's a positive development.

But the shrinking number of detox beds, many in the field say, also
means some addicts at the highest risk of disease or death sometimes
are sent to distant hospitals and lose the will to enter before they
arrive; others go to programs not prepared to treat the toughest cases.

"There are just not a lot of other places to refer these people to,"
said Helen deReeder, director of addiction services at Eastern Long
Island Hospital in Greenport. She said the hospital's five-bed detox
unit and 20 spots reserved for addicts with less severe addictions
are always at or near capacity.

Patricia Hinken, director of alcohol and substance abuse services at
Long Beach Medical Center, says that when detox beds are full, she
often tells addicts to go to an emergency room, where they can be
admitted for a secondary medical problem and treated for withdrawals.

"At that point it becomes a revolving door. They go ... right back
to using, and get sicker and sicker," Hinken said. "If they went
straight into detox, you'd have at least three days to motivate them
to get into an after-care program."