HARRISBURG, Pa. -- Thanks to a $77,250 grant from the Dauphin County commissioners, the fight against heroin and opiate abuse in Central Pennsylvania will become much more easy join for addicts, their families, and friends.
Leading the charge is the health department at Penn State Harrisburg. Dr. Weston Kensinger, the school's Director of Health Education, plans to use the university's wide range of faculty and resources to put together a heroin and opiate prevention website. He refers to it as a "one-stop-shop" for anything related to drug abuse -- education, rehabilitation centers, available resources -- all within Dauphin County.
"We sat down and thought, 'How can we synthesize and streamline this information for a user friendly, easy to access information hub?'" Kensinger said. "So, we're going to take all these leaders in the field and take all their abilities to make the best product we can."
Before website design begins, Dr. Kensinger says Penn State Harrisburg, along with Dauphin County Drug & Alcohol Services, will convene focus groups to determine the most important information. Currently, Kensinger says, Dauphin County does not have a singular outlet for heroin and opiate education.
"This is not going to cure the epidemic, but it's going to get us going in the right direction to give the resources to the people that need them," Dr. Kensinger said.
As he alluded, health officials across the country are referring to the current state of drug abuse in the United States as the worst epidemic the nation has ever seen. In Pennsylvania alone, according to the Pennsylvania State Coroners Association, seven people die every day due to drug-related causes. Not included in the report are those who overdose but survive. In 2014, 2,489 people died from drug causes, with the Coroners Association estimating a 20-percent increase in individual counties from the previous year.
"The clock is ticking in a very life or death kind of way," says Cheryl Dondero, the director of Dauphin County Drug and Alcohol Services.
Dondero says her fight against heroin and opiates is personal. Thirty years ago, she was an addict. She says she started with marijuana, which gave way to methamphetamine, cocaine, Quaalude, opiates, and alcohol. She is currently clean.
"People reach out to me to help someone they love," she says. "I do that everyday; it keeps me sober. It keeps me alive today. I’d be dead if people hadn’t done that for me."
Her work with the county is proof of her need and desire to give back, but there is always more to be done when it comes to drug addiction.
"We need to be preparing our medical field and doctors in Pennsylvania to be trained to be able to talk to their patients and coordinate with our office so we can help those people get the treatment they need," Dondero says.
Dondero and Dr. Kensinger both hope the website can be up and running by the end of the year.