Opinion: Medically, legally, and morally, emergency departments cannot ignore addiction care
“My son Michael asked for help with his addiction to heroin,” a mother wrote in response to a Legal Action Center survey about addiction care. “He was having withdrawal symptoms so I took him to the emergency room, but after a 12 hour wait he was turned away. We were told his withdrawal was not bad enough. Today he is dead.”
Michael’s experience is tragically common. In 2020, nearly 93,000 people died from drug overdoses and every week 15,000 individuals visited emergency departments across the country for substance-use-related health crises.
