To the Honorable Misty Buscher, Mayor of Springfield, Illinois
As someone who has gone through withdrawal alone several times, we definitely have a huge gap in care in Springfield. We are sorely lacking and in desperate need of a detox facility in Springfield. As a leader in city government, I hope you'll work with others to address this gap in services and facilities in our city.
I work at Family Guidance Centers and we work with a vastly underserved community. When someone is finally willing and wanting to get help for their substance use disorder, my heart drops every time I have to tell them they have to go through detox before we can admit them into our facility. I help them make calls to detox centers outside of town, sometimes in Decatur or Shelbyville, sometimes even Champaign. Often these places don’t answer, or they tell you that they have to call you back. So, what if these people don’t have phones? Then, even if they manage to get through somewhere and get accepted and get a time to come in, they don’t have transportation.
My facility can organize for us to pick people up once they’ve completed detox, but we can’t transport them to detox. How are they going to find a way, so far out of town? This issue comes up often. When someone is in such a fragile place, when that window is finally open for them to want and be ready for help, such a huge roadblock as this can be all it takes for someone to give up. This is a real problem in our community, and I can testify that I have seen it happen. We’ve had patients detox on their own because they had no other choice, and they were really that committed to getting clean.
This is unnecessarily cruel and awful for people to go through. Not to mention, self-managed detoxification could be very dangerous. I, myself, suffered a small stroke once when I was detoxing from alcohol on my own. I’m hoping the community can come together to help fill this huge gap in care, and I would appreciate your support in the matter.
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