U.S. Sen. Patty Murray toured the Cowlitz Indian Tribe’s Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) van, as well as its Vancouver health and human services clinic in Hazel Dell, on Wednesday, Jan. 3.
Murray also met with Cowlitz Indian Tribe Chairwoman Patty Kinswa-Gaiser and other Cowlitz tribal leaders about the Tribe’s efforts treating substance use disorder in Southwest Washington.
The MAT van’s purpose is to provide mobile, culturally-appropriate services to urban and rural communities through the network of Cowlitz Indian Tribe clinics along the Interstate 5 corridor, from Vancouver to Tukwila.
“I think it’s an amazing piece of equipment that can really get out and treat people where they are,” Murray said after touring the MAT van. “I think the Cowlitz Tribe has been really creative in moving toward this, and I’m excited to be here to see what they’re doing.”
As chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Murray, D-Washington, has made the opioid epidemic funding a priority. Kinswa-Gaiser has admired Murray’s efforts at the federal level.
“Sen. Patty Murray continues to demonstrate a profound understanding for addressing the mental health and substance-use disorder crisis impacting too many of our people,” Kinswa-Gaiser said in a news release by Murray’s office after her visit. “We’re blessed by the senator’s continued support for building broad-based mental and behavioral health services, including the Cowlitz Indian Tribe’s MAT clinic that is becoming increasingly mobile, available on demand, and open to anyone in need of help. Sen. Murray’s leadership is enabling culturally appropriate healing, saving lives and keeping families together across Indian Country and Washington state.”
In December 2022, Murray secured $765,000 in congressionally directed spending for the Cowlitz Tribe to renovate its behavioral health clinic in Longview in the end-of-year government funding bill, the release added. The funding Murray secured was utilized by the tribe to make the second floor of the clinic ADA-accessible and replace windows for energy efficiency and improve temperature regulation. The funding supports the Cowlitz Tribe’s work to provide substance use disorder treatment and help enable the clinic to offer longer hours in Longview.
This year, Murray is focused on advancing $700,000 in federal money to the Cowlitz Tribe to expand its mobile drug treatment services, the MAT van.
Murray said she appreciates the tribe’s way of treating tribal members “in a way that tribal members react to it in a really good way, rather than just sending them into a community where they don’t understand heritage and what they need personally.
“I love the van,” Murray added. “I think that’s really great. It’s an amazing vehicle with all the facilities on board. … To go to where people are is really the great part.”
Murray said she is impressed with the tribal nation’s efforts to expand health care for its members.
“I think the tribes are being really creative about how they treat people, especially with addiction issues and really saying, ‘How can we do a better job?’” Murray said. “And I think this tribe has really shown that there’s a better way to do this.”
As the top Democrat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in the 115th Congress, Murray negotiated and passed into law major bipartisan legislation to tackle the opioid crisis, the release stated. She also successfully secured federal dollars to expand the 988 helpline, boost the mental health and substance use disorder workforce and increase access to treatment and overdose medication in last year’s government funding package.
The federal debt ceiling deal from last May has made it tough for funding circumstances, but Murray secured $125 million for substance use disorder treatment and prevention in the draft appropriations legislation that passed through the Senate Appropriations Committee last July.
Murray is now working to get multiple bills for substance use disorder treatment and prevention to President Joe Biden’s desk, the release added.
