Welcome, everyone, to Midday magazine for this Thursday, August 8th, 2024.
Have your host, James J. Mailoff here at 430. We're going to welcome in our
friends from UW Extension. Kayla Rumbalski is going to join us. We'll also have
Morgan Vanderhike from Mid-Sate Technical College with us. Right now, looking
forward to talking with our good friend, Ashley Normie Tinfund, Wood County
Health Department. Ashley, it's good to see you. It's been a while. Yeah, it has
been a while. Thank you so much for having us. Really do appreciate the time in
you being here. And especially the topic we're going to focus on today. I do
want to send a big thank you and shout out to our Wood County Health Department.
We appreciate all of you over there and the work that you do in this
community. And talking about subjects like this, Ashley, where we're going to
get into the settlement that was funded in the availability for businesses and
organizations to apply in Wood County for the opioid settlement funds. This is a
big topic. Where do we start with this? Yeah, I guess let's give a little bit of a
history. So back in the late 90s, early 2000s, we were hearing a lot about
doctors being pushed to prescribe opioid medications. And as a result of that,
it turned into a lot of people becoming addicted to medications. And other
other addictions has started at that time. It wasn't all due necessarily to
over prescribing, but that was part of the story. So as a result of that,
recently, we've had some of our distributors and manufacturers of these
medications be part of a litigation to say, Hey, our communities were
drastically impacted by the opioid epidemic that we're seeing now. So things
have gotten much worse in recent years, especially during the COVID pandemic,
things got much worse between COVID and the fentanyl being introduced into the
illicit drug supply. So now we're seeing a lot of people dying
from their addictions and their substance use disorders. So this is really
coming about at a time where we want to try to bring some funding into the
communities and help those partners who are most impacted. And as far as the
people that were impacted, the people that could benefit from something like
this, and they use benefit loosely for lack of a better word,
who would those individuals be? Yeah, so we really looked at that. And in Wood
County, we wanted to make sure we had multiple voices at the table. So we did
form an opioid task force to make sure we had a number of voices and community
sectors represented. So in November of 2022, that's when Wood County convened our
opioid task force to kind of do a community assessment. What do we have
happening that's working well? And where are the gaps in connecting to those
resources for individuals? So what aren't we doing so well and what can be
improved upon? So we brought people to the table from law enforcement,
from health care, from human services, from public health. We had people from our
adult drug treatment court, our school districts, fire EMS, criminal justice,
and most importantly, we brought people with lived experience. So people in the
recovery community, we have a great organization here based out of Wisconsin
Rapids Three Bridges Recovery. We have individuals who really have lived
through it themselves, and we really treat them as the experts in this matter.
So when all of those partners came to the table, we talked about what we have
available to people in our communities. What do we have that can help
individuals and families? And who can help our helping professions?
It doesn't just affect an individual. It doesn't just affect the family. It helps
it affects our entire community. I'm gonna go a little off script for a second, Ashley,
because this topic, it centers around addiction. And I've mentioned this before to the audience,
and it's an insight that not everybody has, it's why I share. But I grew up with an addict. My father
was addicted to heroin the majority of my life. It's only been in the last 20 years that he has
kind of come from that and come out of that. But the stigma that he continues to deal with because
of that, let alone when he was trying to find work and break free of this or anything.
He grew up in a society and lived in a society where that was not really taken in very well,
and you were looked at as a certain way if you were an addict or addicted to something.
When I try to, I'm especially in this job, I try really hard to look for silver linings.
I try to find things that, okay, this happened. We can't change it. What can we take from it?
One of the major things that I have taken from the opioid crisis is it has brought it
full circle in some ways. It has made it real to some people, what the quote-unquote addict looks like,
or what the quote-unquote addictive person is, and looks like. A lot of people have an
image in their heads. Some may have already had a pop in their head as soon as I said that.
The opioid crisis let us know it could be your neighbor, it could be a friend, it could be a relative,
it could be you. It brought it really home to people, and with that, I wish to God not one person
had ever had to deal with this. I would love for more people not to have, but since we are here and
we can't change what happened in the past, we can do something about the future, about the present,
and being much more accepting, giving each other's more grace when it comes to this topic,
and understanding that it can literally affect anybody.
Yes, you bring up a great point, James. We talk about this all the time that
addiction doesn't discriminate. It doesn't matter who you are, you potentially could become addicted,
and we tend to forget that most people start using substances and adolescents. When they're
teenagers or young adults, that tends to be when people experiment with substances because of
that developing brain and the risk-taking tendencies. When people tend to want to do more risky things,
and they try substances, no one really wants to become addicted, and we've heard that before,
but it happens. We've heard of people becoming accidentally addicted to prescription medications
that they thought were safe, and it just wasn't the case. Depending on who you are and what
substance is taken, it all depends on what's going to happen, right?
It's really even brought addiction in itself, not full circle again. I'm using the wrong
terminology, but it is really brought at home for a lot of people. I think of addiction,
I think of alcohol, I think of heroin or these things. You could be addicted to sugar.
In that regard, there is some, again, hate to use the word positive from it, but just trying
to take silver linings and look at what we can from the situation. I think that that has really
helped our communities and bringing this a little bit more home and understanding,
this is something that we need to bring attention to. We need to really get on.
Here, I think of all this because of the group of people that you mentioned came together for this.
It's so insightful. We're in a whole different age now, where I feel like 10, 20 years ago,
we have this subject come up, and I don't know that we get the great minds together like that.
A real shout out to you guys at the Health Department, to this community for coming together,
and looking at what we can do to help, not only some construction to this topic, but to do
some good with it. With that being said, the opioid task force developed a plan with a
framework for distributing these funds. Yes. The opioid task force did bring a plan to how we
would like to see these funds used. We brought that to the county board committee, our oversight committee,
that would then approve these funds. That's kind of how the process will work as we put out this
request for proposals and people request funding from this settlement. We will put a plan together,
propose that to our county board, and they will then have the final approval and say over what
does and does not get funded. Ashley, what are some of the key areas of focus that funding will
include? That's a great question. We will make sure that some of the funds we want to try to kind
of have an even distribution of funds across a couple of different areas. We did say right away
that one project, one big project that needed funding early on was the construction of a federally
qualified health center here in Wisconsin Rapids. That is kind of in the works, the information about
that has been released publicly already, but we are going to earmark part of our initial settlement
funds for Wood County to go towards the construction of that federally qualified health center
to provide not only substance use treatment services, but also primary care and dental services as
well, which is a huge need that was identified in our area. Along with that, being that a large
portion of our initial funds will go towards treatment, we additionally want to make sure we're
evenly funding things such as prevention. So, looking upstream and protecting our youth from
ever starting to use substances and building those positive coping skills, we also want to look
at harm reduction or death prevention if you will. So, what can prevent someone from having an
opioid overdose if they are addicted to a substance? What can help them become more healthy?
Criminal justice and law enforcement are also categories we want to fund. Along with recovery,
we want to be more supportive of recovery in our community. We also talked about having some
funding available for community grants and some for, you know, just evaluating to make sure that
our efforts are making a positive impact and fighting that stigma that you mentioned James. So,
being that there is so much stigma around substance use disorder, this seems to be one of the
most stigmatized topics in our communities and it's not just specific here to Wood County,
it's across the nation and probably across the globe that this is such a stigmatized topic,
where we feel that we can treat people differently if they have a disorder and it's unfortunate.
Yeah, actually a lot, a lot on that to get into and not to necessarily drag the point, but
I think that so much of this, it's so interesting to see a plan in place that truly does cover all
bases. It really does help having that great group of that think tank, if you will,
together of minds to really come up with this plan, this opioid task force. It really does feel
like I'm looking at this and I'm coming at it from such a different angle that I'm looking for
the holes in this and I don't see any, like you guys really covered your bases on this one. I'm
very encouraged and proud of that and I don't know the last time I said that I was encouraged about
this topic, but man, I 10 minutes ago felt completely different than I do now about it,
just talking with you about this and we haven't even, well, this is in the early stages, we haven't
really even gotten going with this yet. I mean, it is, but to know that it's full impact, we can't
wrap our minds around yet. That's really saying something. Yeah, we're coming a long way with
providing education around all of these topics. And one part that I didn't mention is that
70% of the national opioid litigation does come to the local communities, so that other 30%
goes to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. So Wisconsin DHS, then they bring a plan together
to say this is where the funds are most needed for that 30% that comes to the state. They propose
that the joint finance committee to approve a budget, then how those dollars are allocated. So
a lot of what the state has done has been focused around getting Narcan into our communities. So
Narcan is a brand name for Naloxone, which is the medication that saves lives, it reverses opioid
overdoses. And there's really no harm in administering Narcan other than it will reverse that opioid
overdoses, which a lot of people are unaware of. They don't really understand that you can't abuse
Naloxone and that it's not harmful to someone who has not taken opioids. So we have done a lot in
our community to make sure that medication is available to the people who need it most. And the
state's done a great job of funding various projects to make sure there is a law enforcement
Narcan program so that all law enforcement officers can carry Narcan or a EMS leave behind
program so that if an ambulance is responding to an overdose situation, they can then leave
Naloxone with a loved one and tell them how to administer it if this were to happen again.
And I don't want people to get the wrong impression that it enables people. I hear that a lot
and it's absolutely false. If you ask anyone who has gotten Narcan, they will say that is not a
pleasant experience. This is not something people enjoy having happened to them. It actually tends
to throw people into immediate withdrawals and it blocks the effect of that opioid. So that's
kind of a tricky thing, but I feel like I'm getting off topic. No, but I am so glad you touched on
that Ashley. That was amazing. Thank you so much for doing that. That's a topic that has been around
for a while that the only way to counter these things is with knowledge and you guys are able to
do that at the health department. I appreciate you taking the time on that. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah,
I feel like I do tend to get off topic sometimes. You'll be able to. You'll be able to.
Other things that the state is looking at funding are things like medication assisted treatment
or medications for opioid use disorder specifically. They've also put money towards
room and board cost for treatment. So people who, you know, they are able to get into treatment,
but all of a sudden they can't pay for the inpatient, you know, they can't stay, right? So
there has been funds that go towards that. Also looking at an overdose alert system,
just to let local communities know if there is a spike in overdoses in your community.
And then we can get that information out not only hopefully to people who are using substances,
but to the helping professions in our community and people who need to be aware that they may see
an increase in these overdoses. All and really important work and great things to be able to cover.
It is a lot to cover Ashley. We've covered a lot today with a lot of this and it takes a lot
of people behind this too. So again, a big shout out to this task force that was put together.
Are there future meetings that will be happening with this task force? Are you looking to add more
members to the task force? Yeah, people are interested in joining the opioid task force. They
are welcome to reach out to the health department. And I would be happy to share that information
at the end of our interview so that you have it. But you can search for the Wood County Health
Department's information. Just give us a call and feel free to ask for Ashley. And I would be
happy to talk to you about that. We're speaking with our friend Ashley Normatin from Wood County
Health Department. And Ashley wanted to take a little time to talk about the RFPs.
Yeah, so the request for proposal was just released recently. And if anyone is interested in
applying for using the opioid settlement funds, you can go to the Wood County website. And there
is in our, you know, our topics at the homepage of our Wood County website, you can find the
opioid settlement funding request for proposals announcement on there. So you would find the
application read through that to find out who would qualify for the funds. And there are
attachments that kind of point to what are appropriate uses of these funds. These are the approved
uses nationally. So it's not just something we created. This is nationally what they decided the
dollars can be spent on. So the document is called Exhibit E. And it kind of gives a laundry list of
everything that that can be funded with the opioid settlement dollars. Things that we we're not
necessarily looking at funding are things that don't really have follow through. So if it's a very
short term one and done, it's not going to make a huge impact. Those are the things that we're
probably not going to want to fund quite as much as the things that have a long term plan and
will make a larger impact in our community. Which is something that I think that if you are looking
at doing this seriously, that is something you would want. I think that this isn't especially
hearing the way you put this. There's nothing to discourage anybody from this is more this can
even be helpful for you if you do get these funds that the group can be very helpful in the
regards of you putting this into action. Right. Yeah. And this could be it's it's not necessarily
going to be long term funding that can be sustained indefinitely. We will be receiving. We're
expecting to receive settlement funds for the next 18 years. This initial funding is probably
going to be more than we will see in the next 18 years. There are projections as to how much money
Wood County receives. But at the same time, this initial year of these settlement dollars will
receive the most money probably than the rest of the years to follow. And Ashley, if our listeners
are out there hearing this and they're wondering, well, I don't know if this affects me or not,
or I don't know if I can do something with these funds. Just should we just encourage them to
reach out to you guys and ask these questions to find out more. Yeah. I would absolutely love to
to talk more about this with anyone who's interested. Otherwise, you can find more on that Wood
County website just to see what what what does the opioid settlement funding look like? What does
it mean to to have these dollars? So there's a lot of good information right in there. Otherwise,
the Wisconsin Counties Association also puts out a lot of great information that you can look at.
Johns Hopkins also has great information about the opioid settlement funding and what would be
appropriate uses of the funds. Knowledge is the answer. Knowledge is right there for you.
The answers are there. They're with our friends at the Wood County Health Department.
The where Ashley told you to go on that website, woodcountywi.gov. Woodcountywi.gov.
I was just doing a little prep overnight for the show here and was able to go on the website.
Check out all of this information. Get a little bit of a heads up on some of the stuff we were
talking about today. And I'm not in this group or somebody that would need this funding.
So for somebody out there looking for this funding, I couldn't tell you how easy it is to not only
get this information, but to be able to reach out to you all at the health department to have
follow-up questions or find out more about some of these things. And it also is a great opportunity
for you out there listening, even if you are not affected by this. It wouldn't be interested in
these funds or can get these funds. But you do have questions about this topic. I think in just a
short amount of time, Ashley, we have answered some, or you guys should say you have answered
some things that are unknown to our audience up until this point. The Narcan conversation I think
was important. There's a lot of little things like that that we may kind of, you and I or others
out there may commonly know, but isn't common knowledge. So I always encourage you to reach out
to our health department. They're protecting our community. They're looking out for our community.
They're a great resource. Use that resource. Reach out to them with your questions and they can help.
Ashley, I cannot thank you enough for the topic today, the time, certainly what you and the team
over there at the health department do. If people do have follow-up questions, they want to get in
touch with you about this topic or others. How can they reach you? Yeah, you can either call our
main health department phone number. That's 715-421-8911. Otherwise, you can email me directly.
Ashley.Normington at woodcountywi.gov is my direct email. You can find that on
our request for proposal application on the woodcounty website as well.
And keep in mind the funding proposal applications will be accepted until
through August 23rd. Yeah. Keep that in mind everybody. August 23rd, you can find out that
information and more again at woodcountywi.gov. Woodcountywi.gov. Ashley, say hi to the team over
there for us and thank you so much for the time. We'll do. Thank you so much for having us.
We'll have more midday magazine coming up for you right here at 97-5 FM 13-28M WFHR. We are
locally grown radio.
