Kate Walsh, the president and CEO of Boston Medical Center and MHA’s current Board Chair, co-authored an op-ed in the Boston Herald last week with Suffolk County Sheriff Steven Tompkins about the need to address addiction through clinical treatment and improved diversion programs.
“That’s why, together as public health and public safety professionals, we’re urging the Massachusetts Legislature to take important steps forward in criminal law reform,” Walsh and Tompkins wrote.
Specifically, the two called on the conference committee now debating a compromise reform bill to “make sure that the final legislation provides diversion away from the criminal legal system, when appropriate, instead of mandatory sentencing; provides evidence-based treatment for those who are incarcerated; supports clear re-entry pathways to treatment and overdose prevention; avoids imposing criminal penalties when a drug user overdoses; and diminishes the barriers that a criminal record can play in people securing employment and housing.”
MHA has consistently endorsed the use of medication-assisted treatment (MAT) in hospital ERs as part of the total “toolbox” of strategies to address substance use disorder.