STATE MAY FILL GAP WHEN HOSPITAL ENDS METHADONE CLINIC

DANBURY -- Danbury Hospital officially notified the state it wants to stop
treating heroin addicts with methadone, ceding the work to a privately run,
community clinic.

At the same time, the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction
Services has received a $150,000 grant to begin planning a new drug program
in the Danbury area. Sam Segal, policy director for the department's
substance abuse services unit, said the grant may be used to assess where a
methadone clinic might be located in the wake of the hospital's decision.

"Is there another location in the city?" Segal said. "Can we make one
acceptable?"

The acceptable place in Danbury for the past dozen years has been Danbury
Hospital, which runs the state's only hospital-based methadone program. It
launched the program in 1990. City residents, worried about the prospect of
addicts in their neighborhood, have opposed any talk of moving the clinic
away from hospital grounds.

The clinic serves about 130 patients and has a waiting list of 20. At least
20 more people from the Danbury area get methadone in clinics in cities
such as Waterbury and Norwalk.

Methadone is a synthetic narcotic that's generally recognized as the most
effective way to treat heroin addiction.

In recent years, Medicaid reimbursement policies have caused a $400,000
annual deficit in the hospital's methadone program. Medicaid pays the
hospital about $12 a patient visit. The government health care program
prefers community-based clinics, and pays them $31 a visit.

In an April 1 letter to the commissioner of the state Office of Health Care
Access, which regulates hospitals, Gerard D. Robilotti, Danbury Hospital's
executive vice president, said the hospital wants to terminate its program.

Robilotti said the hospital will work with state hospital and addiction
services officials to find someone to run a community-based clinic in
Danbury. The hospital has met with Connecticut Counseling Center of
Waterbury, the Hartford Dispensary and APT Foundation about running such a
clinic.

"We hope to do it this year," Danbury Hospital spokeswoman Linda Wiseman
said of the hospital's wish to transfer the methadone program.

One of the next steps, she said, will involve a meeting of community
substance abuse professionals. They will set criteria for groups that might
want to take over the methadone program.

Again, there's the $150,000 federal grant to the state's addiction services
department. An April 4 news release said the money is to be used to
"support development of substance abuse treatment services in rural
communities." The grant is to be used to design a "culturally appropriate
evaluation for Latinos in Northwestern Connecticut near Danbury."

Segal, the state substance abuse official, said the word "rural" is being
defined loosely in Danbury's case. And although the state received the
grant to improve treatment of Latinos, Segal said it makes sense to join
the planning process for a new methadone program in the city.

"There are two ways to go about this," he said. "One is to move into the
community in the dead of night, open a methadone clinic, then take the heat
afterward. The second way is to involve the community in the decisions. One
would hope that's the better way."

Wiseman said the hospital will be involved in the planning as well, and
will work with the clinic after it opens. "The patients will still need to
come to the hospital for nonmethadone-related problems," she said. "We want
to make sure those services are maintained."

One former addict, who has been off drugs for two years thanks to the
methadone program, said the patients in it are concerned the community
clinic won't offer the complete medical care they find at Danbury Hospital.

"The don't just treat you for your addiction," the former addict said.
"They treat the whole person. So people are scared."