New Clinic Provides Reproductive Health Services to Women Battling Addiction
COLUMBUS
PUBLIC HEALTH
February
21, 2018
Contacts:
Kelli Newman Myers,
CPH
(614) 645-7213 [email protected]
Alex Meyer,
CompDrug
(614).224.4506 [email protected]
Katelyn Hanzel, Nationwide
Children’s (614)
355-0495 [email protected]
New Women’s
Health Clinic Addresses Impact of Addiction on Pregnancy Outcomes
First of Its Kind Clinic Provides Reproductive Health
Services to Women Battling Addiction
A new Women’s Health Services Clinic opened today at CompDrug
to provide a full range of reproductive health services, including
contraceptive counseling, reproductive life planning, and same-day LARC (Long
Acting Reversible Contraception) on site to over 700 female patients of
CompDrug who are in treatment for
substance abuse.
.
A
partnership between Columbus Public Health and CompDrug, with support and
facilitation from Ohio Better Birth Outcomes, the clinic will be located at
CompDrug and managed by staff from the Columbus Public Health Women’s Health
and Wellness Center.
The reproductive health clinic, which will be held every Wednesday from
8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., will be located in the Fields Building, 1420 Fields Ave.,
Columbus. Appointments
and walk-ins are welcome and all patients must be clients of CompDrug, which provides research-based addiction treatment and
prevention services operating one of the largest outpatient opioid
treatment programs in Ohio.
“Opioid
use during pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of adverse outcomes
for infants and mothers, yet barriers such as transportation, child care or
financial need can prevent women from accessing the reproductive health
services they need,” says Dr. Mysheika W. Roberts, Health Commissioner at
Columbus Public Health. “This pilot program is an innovative strategy to
improve access and decrease barriers to family planning services such as LARC
to address the impact of the opiate crisis on pregnancy outcomes in our
community.”
"We
are working with women at a pivotal time in their lives, while in treatment as
they shift to maintaining healthy lifestyle changes. There is a real
opportunity here to improve not only pregnancy outcomes, but quality of life.
When services are housed together, women have access to more care in an
integrated way. We hope this will help empower women to take control over their
own reproductive health," says Alex Meyer, Chief Operating Officer at CompDrug.
“This
is an exciting pilot program for our community to support women in treatment
with knowledge and options for their reproductive health,” says Dr. Rich
Brilli, Co-Chair of Ohio Better Birth Outcomes and Chief Medical Officer at Nationwide Children’s
Hospital. “We hope to learn from this project and
expand in the future with additional healthcare and substance abuse treatment
partners.”
Ohio
Better Birth Outcomes is a collaborative dedicated to reducing the infant
mortality rate in Franklin County. It is comprised of the four health systems
in the community, as well as Columbus Public Health and PrimaryOne
Health.
For more
information, visit Columbus
Public Health, http://www.compdrug.com/ or http://ohiobetterbirthoutcomes.org/.
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