State cuts force Lake Co. health department to slash programs

The Lake County Health Department and Community Health Center has cutback its drug and alcohol treatment services due to an $878,471 drop in state funding, officials said today.

The cuts were announced this afternoon at the county's health and community services committee meeting.

The county was notified in July that state funding cuts were imminent, and found out only in early August which programs would be affected.

The result is the health department will serve 400 fewer patients in its adult addictions treatment program, Women's Residential Services program and Mentally Ill Substance Abusers Case Management program, and in the youth counseling component of the substance abuse program.

The addictions treatment program offers the only residential substance abuse detox treatment program in Lake County. Several years ago, Waukegan's Victory Memorial Hospital and Highland Park Hospital eliminated inpatient substance abuse treatment services.

"With the private hospital programs ending and the population of Lake County growing in general, the demand continues to increase," said Dave Schanding, health department director of behavioral health services. "We generally have 100 to 200 people on our call-in waiting list at any point in time."

The health department's drug and alcohol programs serve about 2,000 to 2,500 patients annually.

Officials eliminated 24 health department staff positions due to the funding shortfall. Ten of those staff members were reassigned to other health department posts.

"We're still working on trying to interview all staff who are affected to look at what else is available in the rest of the health department," said Irene Pierce, Lake County Health Department executive director.

The county's Women's Residential Services program no longer will accept patients with children. Before the cuts, women and children lived together at the Vernon Hills facility and received parenting and family counseling, along with three months of addiction treatment for the adults.

"This will severely impair a mom's ability to undergo treatment," Schanding said. "We work with 100 women per year and half of them have kids that they bring into treatment with them."

The program cuts affect youths coming through the juvenile justice system, who won't get drug treatment and counseling, as well as patients referred through Lake County's drug and mental health courts.

"Many of those individuals need short stays at the addiction treatment program," Schanding said. "Those services will just be less available to the court as they are less available to anybody else."

Pierce said the health department will be trying for other grants to offset the cuts, but that will take time.

"We work one to two years ahead on grants this significant," Pierce said.

Meanwhile, health officials will be lobbying state legislators to get the programs reinstated.

The health department also may be streamlining its own programs in order to serve more patients, or find placements elsewhere.

"This has affected a lot of our county partners and it's also affected our colleagues in the city who provide similar services," Pierce said. "We probably need to work on assessing who has what to assist our patient needs. With any patient that we're not able to serve, we look at what is available in the rest of the community."