4 TOP OFFICIALS OUT AT D.C. DRUG TREATMENT AGENCY

Four top officials in the District's drug treatment program were moved out
of their jobs yesterday as the city's health chief pledged to restructure
the oft-criticized agency and farm out more work to private providers.

D.C. Health Director Ivan C.A. Walks said the Addiction Prevention and
Recovery Administration (APRA) has failed to improve despite additional
funding that was supposed to extend help to many more of the city's 65,000
drug abusers this year.

The agency, with a $32.3 million annual budget, has for years carried a
stubborn waiting list of more than 1,000 drug addicts and has developed a
reputation as unfriendly and insensitive to the clients who need its help
at the most critical moments of their lives.

"There are several problems that we just couldn't reconcile," Walks said.
"We have waiting lists for treatment, and yet we have treatment slots that
are empty."

The agency funds 241 substance abuse treatment beds, about 100 of which are
directly operated by the city.

Walks, who has been health director since September and oversees the
agency, said that he will study how to restructure the agency but that, in
his view, it is an inherent conflict for an agency to provide services
while also overseeing the effectiveness of the program.

Various city officials also expressed dismay over answers given by APRA
officials at a hearing last month when D.C. Council members asked what
initiatives they have begun with nearly $3 million in new funding. No new
programs have been launched yet, said council member David A. Catania (R-At
Large).

"The system itself is broken," Catania said yesterday. "Regardless of who
heads the agency, they need to deconstruct the entire agency and build it
from the ground up."

Walks said senior Health Department officials will fill in at the agency
until replacements are hired.

Among the four, agency administrator Deidra Y. Roach, a medical doctor,
resigned yesterday from her $105,000 post after about a year on the job.
She gave as the reason her unwillingness to comply with rules requiring her
to move to the District from Maryland.

Marcia Richardson, executive director of Safe Haven Outreach Ministry, a
nonprofit drug treatment provider, said she is ambivalent about Roach's
departure. Since taking over the agency a year ago, Roach had encountered
intransigence from city employees under her.

"While there are significant historical problems and systemic problems at
APRA, the real problem in many instances is an entrenchment of some old
staff persons who are impediments to her [Roach's] desires," Richardson
said. "In many ways, she was a victim of her own staff. Because Dr. Roach
doesn't have an assertive personality, I don't think she was feared" by her
employees.

In other moves, management services officer Keith Vance, the No. 2
official, retired from his $88,000 job, and Linda Holifield, a
$67,000-a-year health systems specialist and third in command, was
transferred to a Health Department post outside APRA.

David Hailes, a 30-year city employee, retired from his job supervising the
50-bed detoxification unit, which takes addicts in the first days of
withdrawal from drugs or alcohol. Walks said he had concerns about the
safety of clients in that unit.

"It's a time when people are very vulnerable," Walks said. "It's not the
time when we, as trustees, can have them in situations when their safety
isn't the No. 1 priority. I was clearly concerned that everything wasn't
being handled appropriately when it came to protecting client safety."

Catania has been a relentless critic of APRA and has been calling for
high-level ousters since September. More than $1 billion of the city's
annual budget is consumed by police, courts and countless other agencies in
coping with the many consequences of drug addiction, he said.

Catania remains a leader of council efforts to expand drug treatment
services through the private sector, but he praised Walks for what has
happened thus far.

"I'm pleased that Dr. Walks has shown this kind of initiative," Catania
said. "I have incredible confidence in him. ... It's a remarkable
improvement."

Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) urged Walks to seize the moment and
revamp the agency.

"For a very long time, our substance abuse services have not been
functioning the way we want them to," Graham said. "I'm not saying they've
been a failure. I know a number of people who have gotten sober and clean
as a result of APRA services. But I'm saying it can be much much better
than it is."