UMUCH and the Hartford County Sheriff’s Office signed a memorandum of understanding, in which the hospital will provide data on people who visit a UCH facility in Hartford County for suspected opioid-related overdoses. The data will include the person’s gender, race, age, address, the drug suspected of causing the overdose and the date the person was treated. The information must be provided to police within 48 hours after the person is discharged from the facility, according to the article. The hospital will not release the names or the treatments undertaken by the individuals.
The agreement officially went into effect on Oct. 1. It will remain in place for five years.
Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler told The Baltimore Sun the county has experienced a record number of overdoses in 2016. Sheriff Gahler said local law enforcement have logged approximately 212 overdose calls ─ 35 of them fatal ─ this year. Last year, investigators recorded 202 overdoses, with 28 of them being fatal, according to the article.
“This data will allow the county and the people that live here to know where these overdoses are occurring . . . [we can] hopefully address them before more people die and hopefully use that to affect the youth and let them know this is a terrible problem, [it’s] not just happening here in Harford County but across our state,” said Kathy Szeliga, a delegate for the Maryland General Assembly and the Republican candidate for the state’s seat in the Senate.
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