Medication-assisted treatment. Training on how to administer Narcan. Education and stigma reduction. These are just a few of the initiatives funded by Buncombe County’s opioid settlement money to address the local impact of the opioid crisis.

Medication-assisted treatment. Training on how to administer Narcan. Education and stigma reduction. These are just a few of the initiatives funded by Buncombe County’s opioid settlement money to address the local impact of the opioid crisis.
A new pilot program that started this summer helps people with opioid use disorder to initiate medication-assisted treatment in Mission’s emergency room, and then coordinates follow-up care.
On any day of the week, first responders in Buncombe County might be dispatched to this common scenario: A business owner or a bystander sees a woman on the sidewalk who is agitated, yelling, screaming, and pacing back and forth. Concerned, a bystander calls 911 to get this person help; it’s unclear whether she’s injured, […]
Buncombe County EMS has a new tool for helping an individual suffering from an opioid overdose: medication-assisted treatment, or MAT.
Buncombe County experienced a 147% increase in overdose deaths between 2015 and 2017, the most recent period for which data is available from the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services. According to Emergency Services, Buncombe averages six-to-eight deaths monthly from probable overdoses.