Representatives of Castleview Hospital visited the Carbon County Commissioners on Wednesday to request their consideration in assisting to fund the addiction recovery program.
Those in attendance included, but were not limited to, Jenn Colosimo, Mike Clark and April Johnson. The grant that the hospital currently works with has been in operation for about a year. Throughout the course of that time, they have served 38 patients, which is about three a month.
This marks a significant amount of people that come in and need that help. The grant will end in about six months and the University of Utah will step back. The leadership of Castleview would see it is a huge loss to lose those services for individuals that do not have health insurance coverage.
The purpose of their visit was to talk about the opioid settlement dollars that have begun to come to the counties that could possibly cover services. Colosimo stated that the treatments do not have a concrete number and do vary. If the county agrees to assist with funding, it would begin on the first day of January in 2025.
Commissioner Tony Martines acknowledged that the settlement funds could possibly go to help this program. Commission Chair Larry Jensen explained that the county entered into an agreement to become part of a large group nationally, represented by a firm that carried through with a lawsuit toward drug makers.
Money has come in from the distribution companies in the amount of $627,000. The county decided to split the dollars between Four Corners Community Behavioral Health and the Southeast Utah Health Department.
After that, the county received notification that the pharmacies were also part of the lawsuit and now, in 2024, they have received $522,000 from the pharmaceutical companies.
The money is very structured and, in agreeing to take it as a county, the drug makers and the pharmacies have rules as to what it will be used for. With this in mind, the county approved the request of $61,481 beginning in 2025.