Help Available for Substance Abuse at PIMC

By Louise Dustrude –

For those with substance abuse problems, and for the people who love them, worry about them, or are exasperated by them, there is help available at Peace Island Medical Center.

Lauren Olsen, MD, is a family practice doctor at Peace Island with training and experience in buprenorphine therapy for addiction. No one was sure what the need here was for her training in medical assisted therapy (MAT) for opioid addiction.

Then a person came into the clinic actively suffering from opioid withdrawal, which indicated the need for a MAT drug treatment program, so one was set up, and to date there have been 43 patients helped by that program.

Clearly, the program fills a need here.

Anyone needing help with substance abuse can just call the hospital number, 360-378-2141, and make an appointment. And anyone in acute distress will be seen immediately.

Mallory Brown, ARNP, NP-C, and Dr. Gary Waters, DBH. EdS, and MSW, who is PeaceHealth’s Behavioral Health Consultant also see MAT patients in the program.

Dr. Waters’ services are available to all PeaceHealth patients as part of their primary care plan and they cover a wide range, from emotional and psychological problems, through the full spectrum of their needs. He charts their progress for their primary care doctors, and helps them with depression, or anxiety, and even food insecurity.

He credits Beth Williams-Gieger, Director of Administrative Services, with “envisioning this before I came, the provision of integrated care.”

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