Due to increased demand, Prestera Center has moved an outpatient substance abuse and mental illness treatment facility from Dunbar to a larger facility in South Charleston.
"It's giving us the opportunity to expand our capacity and serve our clients," Dana Petroff, Prestera's director of addiction services, said of the agency's Addictions Recovery Center East (PARC East) move to 96 MacCorkle Ave. in South Charleston on Feb. 24.
"We have more and more referrals," she said. "We're busting at the seams."
She didn't have specific information on how many patients would be able to be served, but said they had hired additional case managers and therapists.
Petroff said Prestera's biggest challenge is finding enough employees. It's not because people aren't going to school in relevant fields, she said, "It's just the demand."
While some other facilities geared toward drug addiction in the area exclusively use peer-based support, Petroff said that Prestera's model focuses on treatment.
"We provide treatment and then enhance it with recovery coaches," she said.
The facility offers group and individual therapy. Social workers, counselors and four doctors, including one psychiatrist, work there.
They also provide medication-assisted treatment, including Vivitrol injections, Suboxone prescriptions and psychiatric drugs for mental illnesses.
Requirements for a prescription for Suboxone, a medication for the treatment of opioid dependence, are the "toughest," Petroff said. People given Suboxone prescriptions are required to attend group therapy weekly, see a doctor weekly, go to individual therapy monthly and go to four 12-step meetings each week, she said. They also do drug screenings.
They are more likely to encourage Vivitrol, a drug that blocks the effects of opioids, Petroff said. "The reason we so strongly support that is because you can't divert it," she said.
Petroff said she didn't have specific numbers on how many of their patients achieve long-term sobriety.
"Any numbers that you get can be skewed," she said.
Kim Miller, director of corporate development for Prestera Center, said they survey clients and have found that on average, 90 percent of individuals served at the facility report they are feeling better as a result of services, but she also didn't have data on long-term outcomes.
The facility had been located in Dunbar since about 2002 or 2003, when it was forced to leave its location at 603 Morris Street to make room for Appalachian Power Park, according to Miller. It moved to a second, larger location in Dunbar about 10 years ago.
Both the Dunbar and South Charleston buildings are on the main bus line.
Prestera is one of 13 community mental health centers in the state. The 13 centers have 55 locations where outpatient services are provided, according to the Department of Health and Human Resources.
As for residential facilities, Petroff said they have 49 beds at several locations in Kanawha County. Kim Walsh, deputy commissioner of the Bureau for Behavioral Health and Health Facilities, said West Virginia currently has a total of 818 recovery beds.
According to the most recent data available from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, most people who need treatment don't get it.
SAMHSA's West Virginia "Behavioral Health Barometer" for 2015 states 2.9 percent of West Virginians reported illicit drug dependence or abuse in 2013-2014, compared to 2.6 percent in the United States. Alcohol dependence or abuse was 6.3 percent among West Virginians and 6.5 percent in the United States.
According to the same report, in West Virginia, among people 12 and older with alcohol dependence or abuse, about 10,000 individuals (11.5 percent) per year from 2010 to 2014 received treatment for their alcohol use in the year prior to being surveyed. Among people 12 and older with illicit drug dependence or abuse, about 6,000 individuals (13.3 percent) per year from 2010 to 2014 received treatment for their drug use in the year prior to being surveyed. SAMHSA defined abuse and dependence using guidance from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which requires "clinically significant impairment or distress" to qualify as a condition in need of treatment.
Meanwhile, drug overdose deaths continue to increase in West Virginia.
Drug overdose deaths increased from 629 in 2014 to 731 in 2015 and 818 in 2016, according to a DHHR report compiled in February.
Last month, Dr. Rahul Gupta, state health officer and Commissioner of the Bureau for Public Health, said that the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner had seen "a dramatic increase in autopsies as a result of drug overdose deaths."
"Already in 2017, we are outpacing the number of drug overdose deaths from the previous year," he said.
Prestera has been in operation for 50 years and serves nine counties in West Virginia. Each year, its 850 staff members provide care to over 20,000 people, regardless of their ability to pay, according to a news release. To schedule an appointment, call 304-414-3075.
Reach Erin Beck at erin.beck@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5163, Facebook.com/erinbeckwv or follow @erinbeckwv on Twitter.