Rep. Courtney Highlights Major Reduction in Overdose Deaths in New London, Norwich
“Encouraging news, but we cannot stop here.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Congressman Joe Courtney (CT-02) spoke on the House Floor highlighting the major reduction of overdose deaths in New London County, and saluted prevention groups and first responders for working together to save lives.
According to the Connecticut Department of Health, unintentional overdose deaths in 2023 fell by 43 percent in New London County compared to 2022.
Courtney applauded the Norwich-based recovery and treatment center, Reliance Health, for its successful Recovery Coach program. Recovery Coaches provide personal support and a pathway to recovery for community members. In 2022, Courtney secured $125,000 in federal Community Project Funding for Reliance Health to hire two additional Recovery Coaches and expand the program’s reach. In the year since hiring the new coaches, the program has doubled the amount of community members it has reached.
Download Rep. Courtney’s Floor Speech HERE
On overdose rates in Connecticut, Courtney stated: “In the state of Connecticut, like other parts of the country, the rise of opioid deaths from 2012 up until 2021-2022 has been 300 percent. People are more likely to die from opioid overdoses than they are from motor vehicle accidents, and eastern Connecticut was no exception. Again, in 2021, the number of opioid deaths in New London County, which takes up the largest portion of Eastern Connecticut by population, peaked at 134 deaths.
“Starting at that point, people decided it was time to get serious about trying to come up with ways to create more prevention and also remediation and recovery for people, again, suffering from addiction. In 2022, that number dropped from 134 to 125, and a couple days ago, the 2023 numbers were reported, and it dropped to 71 deaths. Again, this did not happen by itself.”
On the collaborative community efforts to save lives, Courtney said: “It was collaboration in the community in New London, the New London Opioid Action Team, which was led by Margaret Lancaster from the Ledge Light Public Health District, [who] created a collaboration with the New London Police, the New London EMS,[and] the social service agencies to, again, get more Narcan kits out into the community to educate people in terms of what to do in these situations, these crisis situations, and again it's showing real results.
“In Norwich, which is also one of the larger communities that was hard hit, The Norwich Opioid Task Force was created, led by Kate Milde, who is the Director of Norwich [Human] Services. Again, a collaboration with the Norwich Police Department, EMS, and youth prevention teams, and the Recovery Coach Program, which is led by Michael Doyle from Reliance Health Care. The Reliance Coach Program is a model with trained, street-smart staff that are out in the community, street by street, again, tracking where overdoses have occurred, distributing Narcan kits--500 in 2023--and the number of deaths dropped from 34 to [18] in that community. And again, I just want to salute Michael and his team, who are amazing people doing hard work, saving lives, and again, getting this country better positioned to deal with this crisis.”
On next steps to continue preventing overdose deaths, Courtney said: “Again, I said it was encouraging news. We cannot end our efforts. We cannot stop there. We have more work to do in terms of making sure through budgets in Washington and in state governments that these incredible individuals are able to continue to do their work. Again, in collaboration with law enforcement, in collaboration with hospitals and EMT professionals to make sure that we save lives, get people into recovery, change lives, and get them up on their feet and back contributing to our community.”
Courtney concluded: “Again, I want to just end by saluting their great work and encouraging them to continue on. We are watching you and we are cheering you on.”