Countywide : Drug Counseling Cuts Will Deny Treatment to 1,000 a Month

More than 1,000 people a month seeking help from publicly funded drug abuse treatment programs in Orange County will be turned away because of cuts in government funding, the county’s director of drug and alcohol treatment programs said Wednesday.

Bill Edelman, who oversees alcohol and drug abuse programs for the Orange County Health Care Agency, told county supervisors in September that a tightening of Medi-Cal reimbursements would cut 20%, or $1.9 million, from the $9.5-million program by Nov. 1.

Edelman said this week that the cuts have been made by closing two treatment centers, in Westminster and Santa Ana, and laying off 48 employees. Most of those who lost their jobs worked directly with addicts.

“When you look at the staff members who were affected by these cuts, many had client loads of 50 people a month,” Edelman said. Some of those seeking help at the two closed clinics have been diverted to the county’s remaining nine treatment centers, he said.

“This is extremely unfortunate for us who are concerned about the people and the human side of this whole thing,” Edelman said. “From an economic perspective, it is very foolish to prevent these people from entering treatment.

“It’s a lot cheaper to pay $3,000 a year to treat one of these people than to spend $25,000 a year to house them in the state prison system.”

With fewer programs for those fighting addiction to drugs and alcohol, Edelman said, he also predicts increased costs to the county health-care system and to businesses whose employees may be less productive because they are unable to find treatment.