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Date: 2/22/2022
HOLYOKE – While the nation and the word has been focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic, other health issues have not abated, including opioid addiction and overdoses.
On Feb. 15, state Sen. John Velis announced an award of $25,000 in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding to Tapestry Health in Holyoke to be used to fund an expansion of substance abuse prevention and addiction programs.
Velis said the attention paid to the addiction crisis is “something we can’t allow to fall by the wayside.”
He said what Tapestry Health does in the city is “harm reduction at the fundamental level that is saving lives” and added the past two years has been “a pandemic of isolation.”
State Rep. Patricia Duffy said that Velis took a lead role in securing the earmarked funding and added, “Tapestry has been doing groundbreaking work for years.”
Liz Whynott, the director of Harm Reduction Programs at Tapestry, said, “It has been very difficult for the past couple of years with COVID[-19].”
She explained the isolation caused by the pandemic has made treatment of addiction more difficult and there has been an increase in deaths.
Last November, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health released information about overdose deaths. The statement read in part, “Opioid-related overdose deaths in Massachusetts rose slightly in the first nine months of 2021 compared to the same time last year, according to preliminary data released today by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH). In the first nine months of the year, there were 1,613 confirmed and estimated opioid-related overdose deaths, approximately 21 more deaths than in the first nine months of 2020, or a 1 percent increase.”
According to information supplied by the DPH, in 2019 there were 16 deaths in 2019 in Holyoke and 21 in 2020. Statistics for 2021 have not yet been released.
Whynott said the funding will provide more services to the community. She said there are boxes around the city designed to hold Narcan to be used in helping to stop an overdose death and the funding will go towards this program.
“COVID[-19] has overshadowed a lot of other health issues,” she added.