By Jeff Taylor
The opioid and fentanyl crisis is still claiming the lives of too many Americans despite growing awareness of the problem, more government resources and money from settled lawsuits with pharmaceutical companies going to affected communities. In 2021 alone, nearly 300 Americans died every single day from drug overdose. Rural communities bear the brunt of the crisis and are on the front lines of treating addiction and overdoses. We see this every day in the commonwealth of Kentucky.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the overdose death rate has been higher in rural areas than urban areas since 2006. One of the contributing factors to that higher death rate is the lack of access to quality health care and addiction treatment in rural areas as compared to urban areas. Hospitals are the backbone of the health care system in rural America and in Kentucky, but it’s getting harder and harder for them to keep their doors open. That’s bad for any number of reasons, but rural hospital closures only make it harder to reduce drug overdose deaths.
Buprenorphine prescribed in the ER saves lives
According to Axios, more and more hospitals are treating opioid addiction in emergency rooms with buprenorphine. Starting treatment “in a hospital can dramatically reduce the odds of a patient relapsing and provide a critical intervention.”
However, even here we find rural America facing a lack of access to health care. In 2022, more than half of rural counties and 30% of rural Americans lived in a county without a buprenorphine provider. By comparison, only 2.2% of urban Americans lived in a country with no access to a buprenorphine provider. At the end of 2022, Congress eliminated a requirement that doctors undergo special training to prescribe buprenorphine, which should help expand the drug’s use.