Let's imagine…

In this Article titled "Addiction Treatment Comes to the Emergency Department," the author opens with this statement that caught my eye.  I've made bold and Red the portion that I will focus on in this blog.

People with opioid addiction often come to the emergency department (ED), some because they have overdosed, and others because they are suffering in withdrawal. Teams work to revive the patient who has overdosed or to treat others suffering the symptoms of withdrawal. After that, the typical next step for emergency physicians is to refer patients to addiction treatment services. Then the patient is discharged.

Imagine if, instead, the emergency department team used these encounters to offer patients treatment on the spot for the underlying disease of addiction?

Let's imagine…

If treatment for the disease of addiction was provided in emergency rooms according to the needs of the patient with the disease of addiction just as a patient with the disease of diabetes[1] was provided treatment according to the needs of their disease:

The architect whose entire family was wiped out in one drunk driving accident - not of his doing - would be reshaping a skyline and not standing at a street corner holding a cardboard sign that reads "Hungry."

The tradesman who has built countless homes would be at his trade and not pushing a shopping cart filled with metal to the local recycling junkyard.

Dad would be providing for his wife and children.

Mom would be tucking her son in each night and reading to him poetry that she wrote specifically for him.

Sister would be present on the day that she becomes an aunt for the first time.

Pastor would be preaching from the front of his appointed church.

The neurosurgeon medical student would be performing surgeries and not living on the street.

The only child of her parents would not be sitting in a jail cell for the next couple of years.

The house filled with electronics would never have been robbed.

Black eyes and slashed throats, assaults and rapes and murders would not have happened on the "dates" of our nation's daughters.

Dads would be Dads.

Moms would be Moms.

Sisters and Brothers and Uncles and Aunts and all other combinations of relationship would be in relationship with their loved ones.

This year's Thanksgiving Dinner table would not have one place setting empty in memory of who was here last year and never will be again.

Let's imagine…

And act on our imaginings.

---

[1] Or any disease