Center suffers setback in drug-abuse program

LUBEC – A group of Down East officials and community leaders seeking $1.5 million to open an outpatient treatment program for drug addicts has been turned down – for the third time – in its bid for federal money to get things started.

The federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration told the group earlier this month that its application for a grant would be returned because the grant program had run out of funding this year.

The announcement came as a shock to officials at the Regional Medical Center at Lubec who applied for the grant.

Had the money been awarded, Washington County would have started an intensive seven-day-a-week outpatient treatment program that has been years in the making.

Carrie Perkins-McDonald, project director for the opiate treatment planning grant, said the $1.5 million “would have allowed us to provide a vast variety of services” for people seeking substance abuse treatment.

The services would involve individual and group counseling, medication-assisted therapy overseen by a doctor, a family nurse practitioner to perform physicals, nutrition and vocation counseling, and child care and transportation vouchers for people seeking treatment.

A medical director as well as a middle-level clinician would have supervised these services, Perkins-McDonald said.

The federal agency, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, had the funding, just not enough. It awarded three-year grants totaling $10.4 million to groups in California, New Mexico, Alaska, Arkansas, West Virginia and Nebraska. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson’s home state of Wisconsin also got the nod.

“There were some strong political leaders in those states,” Perkins-McDonald said.

Ken Robertson, team leader for the federal agency’s grant program, said the selection process “goes by priority scoring. So Tommy Thompson’s state got one only because they scored in the top nine to be scored,” he said. He said his agency did not favor one state over another.

The grants are designed to target funding into areas “where there are serious emerging substance abuse problems or the need for rapid response to demands for alcohol and drug treatment services,” the agency said in a news release.

And Washington County has a drug abuse problem.

Last year, the Regional Medical Center at Lubec received a $149,975 federal planning grant to plan and implement a countywide treatment program for people who are addicted to heroin and prescription narcotics.

That planning money was used in part to pay for a director who worked with service providers, including medical personnel from Calais to Machias, to develop agreements for a comprehensive range of services for addicts and their families.

The range of treatment needed to address Washington County’s epidemic of prescription drug abuse services was identified by a panel on opiate addiction treatment that the medical center convened in fall 2000.

Social service providers, educators, medical personnel and government leaders, including the Passamaquoddy Tribe, identified a range of services, including methadone and replacement drug therapy, intensive outpatient counseling, medical care, detoxification, family counseling and education.

The $1.5 million grant was the second piece of the project.

This is not the first time the county has been turned down by the agency.

Nancy Green, assistant project director for the grant effort, said the planners were told in 2001 that out of a field of fewer than 100 applicants they were only two points away from receiving the grant.

In September 2002, Washington County applied again. This time it was rejected – along with 90 other applicant – because the project did not include a specific federal form with its application, according to Perkins-McDonald.

Robertson took issue with allegations that applicants were unaware of the new form and said it was part of the government’s information packet. “It was not a thing where it was not something they weren’t aware of,” he said.

In the latest rejection letter, the federal agency encouraged the county to apply next year for funds that will be available under a new program, which is still being developed.

A spokesman for U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, said earlier this week that she was looking into the matter.

And U.S. Rep. Michael Michaud, of the 2nd Congressional District, said he was disheartened by the news. He said he would work for the grant program’s funding through the next round of congressional appropriations.

In an e-mail to the planning grant staff, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins’ representative, Judy Cuddy, said she was going to ask the agency to review the county’s application to make sure there are no problems when funding becomes available.