Tag: Cabin Creek Health System

Fatal Overdoses: Pandemic Is Especially Deadly For West Virginians Battling Addictions

The COVID-19 vaccine continues to roll out but there’s no obvious fix for other long term medical consequences of the pandemic.

A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows the deadliest year ever for overdose deaths in the twelve months between June 2019 and June 2020. Lethal overdoses were up by 20%. Isolation, anxiety and boredom, three triggers for drug abuse, have created the so-called mental health ‘shadow pandemic.’

And for West Virginia, an existing shortage of healthcare professionals means there are not enough workers for hospitals, clinics and treatment centers that are seeing more patients in distress.

In this episode, Us & Them host Trey Kay visits a Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) program at Cabin Creek Health Systems in Charleston, WV to speak with doctors, nurses and patients about what it takes to stay drug free in the Age of COVID-19. He also speaks with Christina Mullins, Commissioner of the Bureau for Behavioral Health in West Virginia’s Department of Health and Human Resources.

This episode of Us & Them is presented with support from the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation and the West Virginia Humanities Council.

Subscribe to Us & Them on Apple Podcasts, NPR One, RadioPublic, Spotify, Stitcher and beyond. You also can listen to Us & Them on WVPB Radio — tune in on the fourth Thursday of every month at 8 p.m., with an encore presentation on the following Saturday at 3 p.m.

New Initative Aims to Increase Hepatitis-C Care in Rural Areas

West Virginia health and research organizations have partnered to increase access to specialty treatment for Hepatitis-C in rural and underserved areas through telemedicine. A kickoff event for the project will be held today at The West Virginia Clinical and Translational Science Institute in Morgantown.

The idea behind the project – named ECHO, or Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes – is to increase patients’ access to specialists without having to physically leave their local communities.  It is a national model.

Through video-conferencing, specialists at academic institutions will work with primary care providers in rural areas to help care for patients with Hepatitis-C.  This will be the first ECHO project on Hepatitis-C in West Virginia. The new West Virginia Project ECHO is partnering with Cabin Creek Health Systems and other rural clinics throughout the state.

A Tuesday kickoff event at the West Virginia Clinical and Translational Science Institute in Morgantown will include speakers and a short presentation about the new initiative.

The project is slated to begin April 26th.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Benedum Foundation.

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