Hospitals seek more beds as drug use rises

Two of the four hospitals on Long Island that have designated beds for drug detox or rehabilitation are asking the state to expand their number as a result of increasing drug abuse -- including of prescription painkillers.

The requests come as all four hospitals say they have seen an increase over the past three to four years in admissions for drug abuse, as opposed to alcohol use, especially among young, white people in the middle-class.

"Prescription drug abuse is definitely driving the need at this moment," said Patricia Hincken, director of alcohol and substance abuse services at Long Beach Medical Center, one of the hospitals asking for more beds. "We're seeing more opiates and younger users."

'Alarming' rise

Admissions to drug treatment for opiates other than heroin have increased in both Nassau and Suffolk "at alarming rates" in the past several years, according to a report released last Wednesday by state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

From 2007 to 2010, admissions for detox rose 57 percent in Nassau and 40 percent in Suffolk, the report said. Noncrisis admissions -- for inpatient, outpatient, residential and methadone treatments -- were even higher: almost 70 percent in Nassau and nearly 80 percent in Suffolk during the same period, the report said.

Long Beach, which has eight inpatient detox beds, has asked the state to approve eight more. St. Charles Hospital in Port Jefferson has asked to add 10 beds for medical detox and withdrawal.

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About 60 percent of the detox patients at Long Beach are drug users, Hincken said. The other 40 percent are alcoholics -- although, she said, many patients abuse multiple substances.

St. Charles currently has 40 beds devoted to its 21-day drug rehabilitation program, said Jim O'Connor, the hospital's chief executive.

"We get 15 to 20 calls a week from families asking about [help for] relatives, to take them in to get them off the drugs," he said.

Like other hospitals, St. Charles said many of its drug patients are younger. "In the last three years, there's been a significant increase in the younger age population," said hospital spokeswoman Marilyn Fabbricante. She said the average age for nonalcohol admissions is now 23; the average age five years ago was in the mid-30s to mid-40s.

Heroin -- which is cheaper than prescription painkiller drugs like OxyContin but gives a similar high, experts said -- is driving much of the drug abuse, the hospital said, but painkillers play a significant role.

In 2011, of 592 total alcohol and drug admissions, 130 -- or close to 22 percent -- were for opiates such as OxyContin, a slight increase from the previous year, said Claire Olsen, director of the department of chemical dependency rehabilitation at St. Charles.

Demand for treatment

Eastern Long Island Hospital in Greenport, which has 10 detox beds and 20 subacute beds for addiction services, said it has seen an 11 percent increase since 2007 for narcotics treatment, overall.

Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow, which has designated 50 beds for all kinds of chemical dependency -- 20 for inpatient detox and 30 for rehabilitation -- also reports a similar change over the past three to four years. More than 40 percent of all chemical dependency patients are heroin users, said Dr. Constantine Ioannou, vice chairman of the department of psychiatry and behavioral health. About 7.4 percent are primarily abusing prescription opiates -- up from 3.2 percent in 2006.

But, Ioannou said, the two are closely related.

"The dirty little secret is that although many patients start on prescription drugs, they are more expensive and they move on to heroin because it's cheaper," he said. "By the time they get to us, they have a relatively significant habit."

Shedding stereotype

And like other hospitals, NUMC is seeing younger patients -- most of whom don't fit the old stereotype of the disadvantaged drug addict. "We have a very white middle-class population," he said. "In days gone by, it looked more multiethnic."

Even doctors who don't specialize in treating drug addiction say they are seeing more patients who appear to be abusing pain medications.

Dr. Barry Rosenthal, chairman of the emergency department at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, recounted a recent incident in which a man, in apparent agony, came to the emergency department saying he had a kidney stone and needed painkillers. "He seemed like an upstanding, regular guy," Rosenthal said.

Scans revealed he had no kidney stones and a check of his records showed that he had been at the emergency department three times previously with the exact same complaint, Rosenthal said. "The frightening thing is that was just Winthrop," he said. "He could have been at a bunch of different hospitals every two weeks doing the same thing."