Cascade Community Healthcare will expand addiction treatment services into underserved areas of East Lewis County within the next two months after recently receiving nearly a million-dollar federal grant.
According to the health care provider, the funding will fight various addictions.
“There’s a lot of families out there that deal with people who abuse alcohol, and how that affects families. You know, how it can affect them financially and emotionally,” said Mindy Greenwood, Cascade’s chief of inpatient services and substance use disorder officer. “Marijuana can be the same thing.”
The funds will expand Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) access points into Morton and Packwood four days a week and help fund services currently offered in the Lewis County Jail.
“Everybody needs a hand. At some point in their lives, they need a hand,” Greenwood said. “So these three access points, we’re very excited about.”
MAT reduces a patient’s craving for a substance and withdrawal symptoms through medication while they receive substance use disorder (SUD) behavioral therapy services. The combination, Greenwood said, creates a holistic approach.
“We understand that MAT alone cannot fix the problem. We have to address the behavioral issue,” Greenwood said of Cascade’s approach.
Erika Marshall, Cascade’s SUD and supportive employment program manager, said Cascade is constantly looking at potential treatments.
“There’s always new stuff coming,” Marshall said. “We’re always researching ‘Is this something that can help?’”
The expansion into East Lewis County is funded through a $930,000 grant Cascade received from the Department of Health and Human Services Rural Communities Opioid Response program’s Medication Assisted Treatment.
“At every stop on my statewide fentanyl listening tour, I've heard that we must make it easier for people to find treatment if we're going to end this crisis,” Sen. Maria Cantwell said earlier this month when announcing the funding. “That means giving rural hospitals the resources to offer the most effective substance use treatments.”
While the grant will help fight fentanyl use, it will also help treat an array of other substance abuse issues.
The grant will help provide stability, as Greenwood said the funding for the services at the jail has been “pieced together.” Cascade now has three years to make the program sustainable.
Greenwood said the grant funds help expand services to areas without treatment options.
“That’s what the goal of the grant is,” she said.
Cascade is hiring additional staffing to fill the position, and Greenwood eyes having the new resources available by early to mid-November.
“It’s not just medication, it’s also access. We’re going to help them access different services,” Greenwood said. “Because everybody’s recovery journey is different.”
Announced as a tool to fight a surge in fentanyl use, the money will help combat an array of addictions through individualized care.
“We really have a substance use issue,” Greenwood said. “And we need to be able to address that.”
Marshall said the excessive use of marijuana and alcohol became normalized during the pandemic.
Even as people largely return to pre-pandemic norms, their scars remain.
“During the pandemic, we were seeing people coming in with alcohol and marijuana issues that we would have probably never seen. They were very isolated,” Greenwood said. “We’re still struggling to get people back to where they were.”
Treatment for addiction includes several uphill battles. First, there’s convincing someone they have an issue in the first place, especially if it’s a legal substance.
“Alcohol and Marijuana, people don’t understand how devastating those two drugs can be to families,” Greenwood said. “They are two of the biggest devastating drugs to go along with the fentanyl and the meth.”
Then, if someone acknowledges the issue, there’s a stigma associated with you or someone you love seeking help for a substance issue.
By opening localized facilities in underserved communities, Cascade hopes to expand a service that has seen success in the Lewis County Jail.
Greenwood said the jail offers a “good access point to get to people in order to get them to services.”
“This will help cover a lot of that,” she said.
In addition to their new facilities in Morton and Packwood, and the existing service in the Lewis County Jail, Cascade offers MAT services from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday at 135 W. Main St., Chehalis.
