MORGANTOWN — While you were busy fretting over the latest COVID-19 news, opiates killed.
As you feverishly Tweeted about a stranger wearing a mask incorrectly, someone’s daughter slid a needle into her arm for the last time.
It’s not the news anybody wants. It’s reality.
No state loses a higher percentage of its people to overdose than West Virginia, and Monongalia County is helping lead that dire charge.
But there is a resistance.
Since its inception in the spring of 2019, the Monongalia County Quick Response Team has had more than 3,300 interactions and connected some 420 individuals with treatment.
“We just show up. If we have an address connected to an overdose, we’ll just go. We knock on the door, introduce ourselves and tell them what we do and why we do it. We’re not uniformed. I’m not a cop and I’m not a doctor,” Dan McCawley explained. “We meet them where they’re at, both physically and in terms of accepting their state of change.”
McCawley leads a team of peer recovery specialists working with the QRT — a grant-funded mix of medical, law enforcement and addiction recovery -focused individuals charged with combating the recently forgotten epidemic of substance abuse.
When it comes to the QRT, the peer recovery team is the tip of the spear. Data comes in from cops, EMTs or referrals from friends and family, or the addicts themselves. Then it’s time to get to work.
“Just showing up with compassion and coming with lived experience, being people in recovery ourselves, goes a long way,” McCawley said. “Sometimes you need to talk to someone who’s been there; who’s been sick and dependent on drugs and alcohol. You’re talking to someone who knows exactly where you are because we’ve been there.”
The goal is to follow up with an individual within 72 hours of an overdose.
Those efforts have recently been enhanced through a $105,966 grant from the National Association of County and City Health Officials.
Brittany Irick, who coordinates the QRT out of the Monongalia County Health Department, said those funds will be used to purchase a Zuercher account for the group — the same system used by MECCA 911.
“We’ll be able to actually to see these overdose events happening in real time so the peer recovery coaches can get to those individuals as quick as possible,” Irick said.
The QRT concept originated in Coalrain, Ohio and was brought to West Virginia as a pilot project. Monongalia County’s QRT was created as one of the five original QRTs formed through grant funding from the state. It has since received financial support to serve in a mentorship role to programs forming across the country.
“This issue affects so many people in West Virginia and all across the nation,” Irick said. “Sometimes it’s difficult to bring individuals and organizations together, but I think we’ve done a fantastic job of getting the word out about what we’re doing and bringing everyone to the table, because every individual, every agency, brings something to the table.”
Even if that something is as simple as knocking on a door.
“There’s the attitude from some folks who say, ‘Well, they’re a junkie. Let them die.’ But they’re a person, it’s a life, and we can do something to save them,” McCawley said. “There are people today who are alive and breathing because of the efforts of the quick response team. That’s amazing.”
