From OPB.org, September 4 2008

Several local health care providers are helping keep a regional detox center open — at least for the next two years.

LISTEN to this report.

A handful of local health care providers contributed six-hundred-thousand dollars to keep the sobering station at Hooper Detox in Portland operating.

The center is operated by the non-profit Central City Concern. It’s a place for police to take people found in public who are inebriated to the point of incapacitation.

This condition can be deadly if not properly treated.

Dave Underriner is an executive with Providence Health and Services, one of the health care providers that contributed funds to the detox center.

He says it’s a lot cheaper to treat people at a specialty detox center than the emergency room.

Dave Underriner “I mean you look at the sobering station, you look at what Central City Concern is doing, it’s a great program and to lose that, and then to end up having the emergency department be the place where people end up going, it doesn’t make any sense at all.”

EXTRA – Hospitals, insurers fill detox center budget gap, Oregonian September 4 2008
EXTRA – Hooper Detoxification Center gives people a safe place to sober up, Oregonian, September 10 2008

Multnomah County officials say they’re working on a sustainable way to fund the detox center.