PHARMACIST STEVE

Local law enforcement, medical professionals and other community organizations came together Wednesday to affirm an effort to work together to fight the area’s opioid crisis.

Many groups are already doing good work to combat the epidemic, but none of them have really been talking to each other, St. Joseph County Prosecutor Ken Cotter, said. What the groups are trying to do now, he said, is coordinate their efforts and become more active.

Following the shooting death of Graham, Cotter said, he was contacted by more than 20 doctors wanting to know not only what they could do to assure the safety of their patients and staff, but what they could do to fix the problem.

Part of law enforcement’s contribution in the collaboration is working with medical providers to establish “best practices” for dealing with threats and security.

“We don’t want them worrying about their safety and the safety of others,” Cotter said.

This will ensure medical providers are making the best decisions for their patients when prescribing medicine, he said, not making choices out of fear for their safety.

On the medical side, doctors will more actively work with law enforcement on the best ways to treat addictions to opioids. Although starting out there aren’t concrete plans to create things like committees, the goal is to start the partnership and the conversation.

While a partnership between doctors and law enforcement may be new, the area’s medical providers have already begun teaming up, Dr. Mark Thompson, an area general surgeon, said.

Representatives from both Memorial Hospital and Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center, along with South Bend Clinic and Allied Physicians, have started working together on community prescribing standards.

“That’s staggering,” he said. “That’s too much.

“Our goal as a community,” Thompson said, “is that we create no new addicts.”