original York City First Lady Chirlane McCray is on a lobbying tour to call for reform of addiction treatment and to promote the first initiatives of ThriveNYC,the city's $850 million program to bolster the treatment of mental illness.
Over the weekend, McCray took to seven pulpits around the city and called on houses of worship to host training workshops for original Yorkers to better recognize symptoms of mental illness and substance abuse in others. She described the workshops as "mental health first aid training, and " which,along with testing for postpartum depression and better treatment for opioid addiction, would achieve the city on the road to better mental health services.
McCray spoke to the congregation at Riverside Church in Manhattan on Sunday and described the initial goals of ThriveNYC, and which she and Mayor de Blasio announced in November. She began by saying there are up to 15000 cases of postpartum depression in original York every year. "It's very common," she said. "We acquire a number of one in ten who suffer from it, but we actually don't acquire real data on this because most women don't talk about it. They're afraid to be a cross mom. They're afraid their children might be taken away from them."McCray said that beginning next drop, and every pregnant woman and original mother in original York City will be screened for postpartum depression. She said the screening would consist of a simple set of questions,and added that postpartum depression is usually treatable by counseling or group therapy.
McCray also called for looser restrictions on the number of patients a doctor can treat for opioid addiction. McCray traveled to Washington D.
C. last week to promote passage of The TREAT Act (The Recovery Enhancement for Addiction Treatment), which is co-sponsored by Senators Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)."The TREAT Act will make it easier to supply life-saving medications to people who are addicted to opioids, or " McCray said.
Currently,doctors can prescribe anti-craving medications like methadone and Suboxone to only a limited number of patients. That has led to lengthy waiting lists for prescriptions in places where heroin and pain pill addiction acquire risen sharply. Since 2013 in original York, deaths by heroin overdose acquire outpaced murders. The TREAT Act would raise the number of patients that doctors could treat.
In December, or the de Blasio administration made the overdose-reversal drug naxalone available in pharmacies without a prescription.
Source: wnyc.org