West Virginia is a major casualty of the drug epidemic, and taking innocent victims along with it. So it’s a big deal that they are opening a much-needed new 20-bed inpatient substance abuse facility in Beckley.
Hope for Tomorrow is accepting patients from Medicaid to private insurance. They expect to open in mid-December.
Being a part of this is a passion for Michelle Simpkins.
“People are dying from this and we’re just here to help fight it,” said the director of clinical services. “Addiction is a disease that we are all here to help fight.”
Hope for Tomorrow residential facility patients stay about 30 days and up to 60 and the center will continue to add additional services as they build the program out. They get patient referrals from many different sources.
“Some of them come from other professionals, they may come through the ER, they may come from their doctor, they may come from a family member, they may come from a probation officer, or they may just be self-referred,” said Baymark Health Services VP of business development Vaughn Bell. “In Beckley, because it’s a larger city with more medical services here and closer hospitals in the area we do expect to see an increased amount of folks from medical facilities like the ER, from the VA, we treat VA patients.”
For all the negative associated with addiction, there’s something beyond that.
“The positive is seeing our patients come through the door and knowing that we’re gonna help change their lives.”
Baymark is the largest opioid treatment provider in North America; this is what they do. According to the VP of business development, they use MOUD (medication for opioid use disorder) in all of their programs and on a long-term outpatient basis. Hope for Tomorrow is for those who need to be in a safe inpatient environment with a more intensive approach where they can be monitored.
“Folks who have maybe a more complicated scenario in terms of their ability to stay sober, we do treat folks for what we call co-occurring disorders,” Bell said. “So they might have a severe depression or anxiety diagnosis, along with their addiction. Those folks may have a harder time just going straight into outpatient and doing it on their own. Those folks do really well when they come in and spend some intensive time with us in residential and then we transition them into outpatient.”
According to the VP of business development, their management team practically renovated the building themselves — so it’s become a labor of love.
“It’s very important for us to feel like this is a homey environment for our patients; you can see we’ve made an effort to make it really warm and comfortable,” she said. “We really have a hard time keeping up with the volume of patients who need services at Point Pleasant. So we’re ecstatic to be able to open a second location and there’s just not adequate amount of services in this part of the country.”
Witnessing transformations is emotional for the director of clinical services Michelle Simpkins.
“We get to see the growth of them and just visually see it. We get to help get their kids back, get their license back — whatever that we can do for ’em,” she said.
TO LEARN MORE…
Hope for Tomorrow
198 George St, Beckley
304-902-8532
Open 24 hours
