The empty rooms have sun-filled windows, pastel blue-and-green decor, plenty of closet space ? and plaster ceilings where addicts won?t be able to stash their drugs.
The Sykesville center will be the first residential drug treatment facility in Maryland where patients can undergo five or 20 hours of counseling a week for up to six or nine months, depending on their needs, said Susan Doyle, director of the Carroll County Health Department?s Addictions Bureau, as she led Carroll County commissioners and reporters on a tour Monday.
“We?d see patients go home, do good for 30 to 40 days, then relapse and go buy heroin in West Baltimore,” she said. “The longer they stay, the better their chances are for success.”
The $3.5 million facility will open in October on the grounds of Springfield Hospital Center and a minimum-security state prison.
The center, which is yet to be named, is expected to treat 70 people a year and house 36 men and 12 women at a time.
Patients will complete individual counseling, group therapy and learn job skills in free housing ? often a need in a county where affordable apartments are hard to find, Doyle said.
Shoemaker Center, about a mile away, offers residential detoxification with 36 beds, but treatment is limited to 30 days. Until now, addicts seeking long-term treatment had to leave Carroll, making them more vulnerable to relapses.
Nearly half of Shoemaker?s patients could use long-term care, said Doyle, a former director of Shoemaker.
County officials started planning the center six years ago after the deaths of 10 minors from heroin overdoses in the 1990s.
Carroll plans to solicit bids this week from companies to run the new center, county Citizen Services Director Jolene Sullivan said.
“It?s like we finally had our prayers answered,” said John Bosley, clinical director at Junction Inc., an outpatient drug treatment facility in Westminster that often can?t find enough beds for addicts at halfway houses or Shoemaker.
