This is an excerpt from an article titled “Clinic works to break down treatment barriers for opioid addiction” originally published by KATU News on 12/17/2019. See the full story here.

Amy Stocker is in long-term recovery for an opioid addiction; she now works as an MHAAO Peer Support Specialist at the Harm Reduction and Bridges to Care clinic (HRBR), on the OHSU Marquam Hill Campus. (Photo: KATU)

A local clinic is caring for those who need fast help to curb an opioid addiction by breaking down some barriers to a sober life. It's a relatively new approach to shorten the path to recovery. Much of the progress starts in the pseudo-break room set up in the Internal Medicine wing of the Oregon Health & Science University's Marquam Hill campus. This can be a spot for relief.

“I just sit and talk to them and see what their goals are," Amy Stocker said, talking to KATU News about one of the first steps taken when a client or patient comes in to visit the Harm Reduction and Bridges to Care clinic, or HRBR.

Stocker is a peer support specialist at the clinic who sees the pain in her peer's faces when they enter. They're dealing with a substance use disorder, as she once did and currently does while in recovery.

“A lot of hopelessness, desperation, hurt, trauma - People that are very vulnerable and are not ready to trust a lot of people," Stocker said, talking about what she sees.

Stocker has been where they've been. She was once addicted to prescription opioid pain pills after major gastric bypass surgery in 2002, when opiates were, “handed out like candy," Stocker explained. She said doctors quickly cut her dosage and medication drastically, forcing her into a painful withdrawal.

She has suffered the same physical symptoms her clients do, in both the body and mind, while withdrawing from opioids.

“But in your brain, it’s a much bigger problem. Knowing how to function while you’re using – everything is taken away. You don’t know how to do anything for yourself because you’re in such terror inside," she said.

Stocker has been in long-term recovery since July 15, 2008, the day her son was born and the day her path to clean and sober living began. One tool that helped along the way is what HRBR is trying to provide.

“We need to try to reduce barriers to get people on these life-saving medications and that’s what we’re hoping to do here at HRBR," said Dr. Bradley Buchheit, the HRBR Clinic Medical Director. He wants to take away the painful waiting process.

Thanks to a federal grant, the HRBR clinic provides same-day, walk-in access to buprenorphine, used in medication-assisted treatment to treat opioid use disorder.

"Unlike methadone treatment, which must be performed in a highly structured clinic, buprenorphine is the first medication to treat opioid dependency that is permitted to be prescribed or dispensed in physician offices, significantly increasing treatment access," the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration stated on its website.

“We know medications, especially for opioid use disorder, reduce overdose risk by 50 percent and reduce return to use. But there are often barriers in the medical system," Dr. Buchheit said.

Research has proven that medication-assisted treatment is an evidence-based strategy for treating individuals with an opioid use disorder, OHSU explained in its curated opioid resource library available online.

The new clinic began operating October 28 and is open weekdays from 4:00 to 7:30 p.m. in the Physicians Pavilion on OHSU’s Marquam Hill Campus. Dr. Buchheit stated that he's seeing about 5-8 patients per evening.

Many treatment programs, often times, require people suffering from a substance use disorder wait sometimes weeks to get an intake appointment, attend counseling sessions, or commit to abstinence from all drugs and alcohol before beginning treatment, HRBR staff explained.

The HRBR clinic at OHSU is designed as an urgent response to an opioid crisis that is killing an average of five Oregonians every week from overdoses, according to the Oregon Health Authority.

"The clinic provides immediate, life-saving medication to people suffering from addiction while also helping each patient form a long-term plan for continuing their care at a primary or specialty clinic in their community," HRBR staff explained in a news release.

Staff explained that OHSU is collaborating with the Oregon Health Authority to provide two-years-worth of funding for this clinic, which provided a grant through the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to initiate the clinic. The clinic employs a full-time care transitions coordinator and a peer-recovery mentor in Amy Stocker, along with a part-time nurse practitioner and medical director in Dr. Buchheit.

For Stocker, this life-saving work is part of her relief, too. “It’s almost like a healing process because I get to help the people that used to be me," she said.

OHSU's HRBR Clinic Provides Walk-in Access to Buprenorphine