Tennessee is expanding its drug rehabilitation footprint into more rural counties, according to the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuses (TDMHSAS).
“Tennessee’s Project Rural Recovery is growing. Thanks to $6.3 million budgeted in the current fiscal year by Governor Bill Lee and the Tennessee General Assembly, Project Rural Recovery is expanding to ten new counties,” said a Thursday release.
A grant was awarded to Ridgeview Behavioral Health Services and Pathways, based in Oak Ridge, to carry out the process.
The new counties served include Crockett, Fayette, Hardeman, Haywood, Lauderdale, Campbell, Fentress, Morgan, Scott, and Union.
“Ridgeview is committed to providing high-quality behavioral health services through prevention, treatment of mental illness & substance abuse, and support to improve the overall health, well-being, recovery, and hope of the people we serve,” that group’s mission statement says. “Ridgeview’s services reflect the values to which the agency is committed.”
Project Rural Recovery is a mobile clinic that travels to rural parts of the state, offering counseling to those in need, which says it has treated more than 1,600 Tennesseeans in its first two years. The program is free to patients.
“Project Rural Recovery is changing lives and increasing resiliency in Tennessee’s rural communities. We’re so proud of this program and the impact that it’s having for Tennesseans who otherwise would have to travel long distances or forego the care they need,” said TDMHSAS Commissioner Marie Williams. “We’re so grateful to Governor Lee and the Tennessee General Assembly for seeing the value in this program and deciding to double its reach with ten new counties.”
The project’s expansion comes at a time when overdoses, particularly those involving fentanyl, are exploding to all-time highs.
“In 2020 in Tennessee, 2,014 people died of drug overdose related to fentanyl,” TDMHSAS said in a May release. “That’s more than double the number from 2019 and an exponential increase from 2015 when there were 169 overdose deaths associated with fentanyl.”
Officials in Tennessee are also on the lookout for a new and even more potent synthetic opioid called Isotonitaneze, which first appeared in 2020 but is becoming more prevalent.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Drug Rehabilitation Center” by Rehab Center Parus. CC BY-SA 4.0.