Methadone clinic site announced Acadia makes Stillwater temporary location

BANGOR – Acadia Hospital officials confirmed Monday that the hospital would look to temporarily offer methadone treatment at its main campus on Stillwater Avenue.

The Acadia board of trustees last week voted unanimously to approve the new site, according to Lynn Madden, the hospital’s vice president of administrative services.

Madden said Monday that the decision to move the clinic came as a direct response to the will of the City Council’s Special Committee on Opiate Addiction, which recommended a more general medical setting, rather than the hospital’s remote drug treatment facility on Indiana Avenue.

The new location will be among the topics discussed at tonight’s meeting of the committee at 6 p.m. in the City Council chambers.

The hospital’s original application to state and federal licensing officials had listed the Acadia Recovery Community as the proposed site of the methadone clinic, which would offer treatment to hard-core heroin addicts as well as those addicted to prescription painkillers such as OxyContin, the abuse of which has plagued the region in recent months.

That location, however, ran into stiff opposition from city officials looking to develop a high-end business park in the area, which also includes the University of Maine at Augusta’s Bangor campus and a day care center. City officials had pushed for a more general medical setting so a patient’s problem could not be so easily pinpointed.

City Councilor Nichi Farnham said Monday that she was pleased with the hospital’s decision to begin the treatment at the Stillwater Avenue campus.

“With the presence of all their staff and the security already in place, I think it’s a good choice,” said Farnham, who with Dr. Jack Adams representing Acadia Hospital, chaired the six-member opiate committee.

Earlier this month, the committee submitted its final report to the Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services, the state agency charged with licensing and overseeing the state’s two existing methadone clinics.

In its report, the committee recommended that a Bangor clinic be allowed to open under certain conditions including that a community advisory group be allowed to assess the clinic’s impact on the community at a temporary location other than the Acadia Recovery Community.

The City Council’s recent endorsement of the report sparked a new round of debate in the community, with opponents of the clinic repeating their objections, calling the clinic a magnet for drug addicts and drug-related crime.

Local law enforcement officials also had raised concern about the clinic’s original location, citing a propensity for drug addicts to convene in the vacant areas around the Acadia Recovery Community, formerly the Hope House.

Bangor Police Chief Donald Winslow said Monday he was pleased with the hospital’s decision to relocate the program, but wished the location wasn’t a temporary one.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not happy we’re getting a methadone clinic, but if we’re going to have one [Acadia] is a better place for it,” Winslow said. “One thing we’ve learned from other communities is that a general medical setting has the least impact.”

School officials have expressed concern with putting the clinic at Acadia’s main campus, noting that the complex also houses an educational program for about 60 school-age patients through the Bangor School Department.

Acadia officials have maintained that they want eventually to offer the treatment at the Acadia Recovery Community, where it now houses its outpatient services.

Hospital officials soon will amend their original application to include the new location, Madden said. Acadia officials have estimated that a clinic could be up and running in four to six months after state and federal officials approve the application.

Madden said relocating the methadone treatment also would involve moving related drug treatment services, including counseling, from the Indiana Avenue building to the hospital’s main campus. In all, about 15 staff and about 50 clients would be relocated, she said.