BANGOR, Maine — New treatment centers for substance use disorders are coming to Penobscot County later this year.
Brewer Medical Center, Hope House Health and Living Center in Bangor, and the Seaport Community Health Center in Belfast will be some of the new additions to the Penobscot Community Health Care (PCHC) network.
It's an expansion of services that are currently only offered at PCHC’s Bridge Clinic in Bangor. These newly added locations will be staffed by PCHC experts to provide low-barrier services such as same-day medications.
PCHC’s Executive Clinical Director of Substance Use Disorder Services Rachel Solotaroff told NEWS CENTER Maine of the coming improvements.
"It will be an opportunity to do all the things that Bridge does in a Substance Use Disorder Health Home Model in a variety of sites," Solotaroff said.
Goals for the new treatment centers include improving patient participation and commitment to taking medications.
"We have a long-standing commitment to treating addiction in the community,” Solotaroff said.
The Bridge Clinic first opened in 2019. Since then, between 400 and 500 patients have been treated per year.
"I really light up when I think about the idea of someone who woke up hopeless that morning and said, 'I don't know what to do.' But then a case manager, a street outreach worker, or a friend had given that person a phone number and they called that phone number, and by that afternoon they got an appointment, and all of a sudden a life that they thought was telescoping down is opening up to whole new horizons," Solotaroff said, as she spoke of the emotional impact of the low-barrier model.
For more information about Penobscot Community Health Care, click here.