Not Just Overdoses Drive Drug Users into Hospitals—It’s Also Drug-Related Illnesses
The emergency rooms of many American hospitals are too frequently stressed by a heavy burden of drug overdose victims—after all, one American dies every 11 minutes from an overdose. You get one strong batch of fentanyl-contaminated heroin or toxic synthetic cannabis and a city ER can be swamped with people needing their lives saved. What some people miss is that there are several serious medical conditions connected to drug abuse that often send people to ERs, further overloading these facilities.
As covered in USA Today, endocarditis is a common complaint. This is an inflammation of the inner lining of the heart that results from the use of contaminated needles. Treatment for endocarditis often runs $50,000 per patient. Of course, many addicted patients have dismantled their lives and destroyed their income sources meaning that public funds will have to pick up the tab. As more people use heroin and share needles, the rate of drug-related endocarditis has doubled.
To provide an idea of the impact of this problem on a single patient, National Public Radio profiled an endocarditis patient. After suffering this heart infection three times, he finally was able to stop injecting heroin and Suboxone. He needed two heart surgeries to replace an infected valve and install a pacemaker. He then suffered a stroke.
As our drug epidemic grows, the number of endocarditis cases also increases. NPR reported that at Catholic Medical Center in New Hampshire, a total of three intravenous drug abusers with endocarditis were treated in 2011. In 2016, year, it saw 51 and most of these patients were only in their 20s and 30s and on Medicaid.
Other Common Conditions among Injection Drug Users
Hepatitis C is another disease passed from one injection drug user (IDU) to another. Regions with high levels of opioid injectors generally have high levels of Hepatitis C as well. Hepatitis C can gradually develop into liver cancer or result in fatal liver failure. Of course, HIV is also transmitted by shared needles.
MRSA is an staph infection that is resistant to methicillin, amoxicillin, penicillin and other antibiotics. MRSA is a common problem for injection drug users, even if they don’t share needles. MRSA can be fatal.
A person who has lost control of his life and continues to inject drugs after getting sick can wind up in the ER again and again. He (or she) may not possess the discipline to take care of himself and he may have no clean, safe living space in which to protect his health after the first illness strikes.
Rural Areas Struggling with Both ODs and Illnesses
According to the Rural Health Information Hub, medical centers in the countryside are no better off. In Batesville, Indiana, the number of Hepatitis C cases in this community of 6,500 people tripled in just one year to 34 new cases. The same hospital dealt with 27 drug overdoses, highlighting the fact that the burden for health centers can be similar from these two sources.
Many other rural areas struggle with drug abuse-related illnesses and overdoses both. Kentucky and West Virginia, both largely rural states, struggle with high rates of opioid abuse and overdose. Oklahoma, Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska battle higher than average rates of methamphetamine abuse.
There are steps the federal government and its agencies can take to quell this national problem but at home, the addiction of a loved one is best addressed by finding an effective drug rehab that does not rush the person through the process of recovery. It may take one person longer to recover from the trauma and rebuild sober living skills than another person. An individual should graduate from a rehab program when he is ready to create a new sober life for himself and not before.
If helping an addicted person find recovery is a challenge you are facing at the moment, find out how Narconon guides clients through this healing and learning process without using drugs as part of that person’s recovery.
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