This is much more of a personal diary entry than my typical issue blogs. I am angry, frustrated and deeply saddened by what I experienced last week and thru the weekend. As I wrote about in a previous blog, I have been working on a story for
Nightline about the heroin epidemic in a cluster of midwest towns. When the
Oprah Show found out about the enormity of the problem, they decided to commit resources to try and tell the story as well. Last week, I made my third trip out to the region.
The week between my second and third trip, a 52 year old woman had overdosed and died, an 8 month pregnant girl was arrested and one of the people we spent time with had a relapse. Those are the incidents about which I know.
A couple of the people we've been profiling are a 5 month pregnant user, Merry and her boyfriend Brandon. Without getting into the complicated details of what happened last week, Merry and Brandon decided they wanted to stop doing heroin immediately but they needed help. They asked me. I have never dealt with anyone addicted to heroin before so I don't know the protocol in these kinds of situations. I remembered that a local police chief told me that he knew of some facilities that could help immediately--I called him. Within the hour, he was at Merry's home and took Merry and Brandon to a hospital about an hour and a half away in a big city. Charlie, the police chief is one of the most decent human beings I have ever met and restored my faith in humanity. He works tirelessly during the week and spent his entire weekend trying to help Merry and Brandon. Charlie was under the impression that they could detox there for three days and then get admitted to a 6 month program to get clean.
The nightmare started the moment they set foot in the emergency room: two kids in excruciating pain as they were starting to heavily detox. After repeatedly rejecting Merry because she is pregnant, the Charlie had to resort to getting her in through back channels. Charlie left Merry and Brandon at 6AM the next morning. The two addicts couldn't seem to get help.
Long long long story short, Merry was moved multiple times and by 7PM the NEXT day, Brandon was still sitting on a wooden bench awaiting to be placed. All the while, the two of them were practically immobilized and desperately sick. At any time, had they had access to heroin, they would have shot it up and felt infinitely better, but they couldn't. Merry was moved to a psych hospital where they are not giving her the medication that her physician says a pregnant woman needs. She is so sick that she cannot even talk on the phone. Brandon finally got a bed but hasn't been given anything to help him detox.
As we speak, two kids are going through a kind of hell that most of us cannot even imagine. It pains me that the system has not been more cooperative with this process. I have to wonder if we as a people care enough to help people kick this insidious addiction that takes total control of people. It has become clear to me that unless you have money, it seems most people will give up on even trying.
