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Clark County Opioid Overdoses On Track To Eclipse All Of 2016

State officials have enacted new regulations to curb what they say is overprescribing of opioid painkiller medications to patients who may not really need them
Chaos
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WYSO

Clark County health officials say the number of drug-overdose cases continues to skyrocket. If trends continue, the county could soon surpass the number of drug deaths seen in the county all of last year.

Over the course of just two days, doctors at Springfield Regional Medical Center treated more than four dozen overdose victims, more than double the typical average, health officials say.

But it’s a fraction of Clark County’s total overdoses so far this year. Dozens more have died or were revived by first responders.

Health district spokesperson Anita Biles says the numbers alone don’t begin to tell the story of drug addiction in the county.

“And so not to get caught up in statistics, which are important in helping us see the big picture, but it’s extremely important that we continue to remember that each one of those numbers is a person and we just need to find better resources and stronger resources to help them,” she says. 

Biles says health officials suspect fentanyl is to blame. According to the US Centers for Disease Control, the opioid is up to 100 times stronger than morphine.

Anyone seeking help with addiction is urged to contact McKinley Hall by calling (937) 328-5300, or visit www.mhrb.org.

Jess Mador comes to WYSO from Knoxville NPR-station WUOT, where she created an interactive multimedia health storytelling project called TruckBeat, one of 15 projects around the country participating in AIR's Localore: #Finding America initiative. Before TruckBeat, Jess was an independent public radio journalist based in Minneapolis. She’s also worked as a staff reporter and producer at Minnesota Public Radio in the Twin Cities, and produced audio, video and web stories for a variety of other news outlets, including NPR News, APM, and PBS television stations. She has a Master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York. She loves making documentaries and telling stories at the intersection of journalism, digital and social media.
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