Gov. Chris Christie announced grants in excess of $35 million Tuesday for providers to care for patients with severe opioid use disorders, pregnant and postpartum mothers and older adults with opioid dependencies.
“To ensure treatment is successful, it is essential that systems of care join seamlessly to treat the whole individual,” Christie said. “This funding supports the type of integration of behavioral and primary health care I envisioned when transferring the Division of Mental Health and Addiction Services from the Department of Human Services to the Department of Health.”
Grants of $10 million each were awarded to Beacon Health Options of Boston (Northern and Central regions) and Oaks Integrated Care of Mount Holly (Southern Region).
The Department of Health will commit an additional $8.6 million for performance-based incentives, and recently awarded $5 million in new contracts for expanding substance abuse treatment.
The agencies awarded the contracts in the competitive bidding process were:
- Cooper Health System, $1.5 million.
- Eva’s Village Inc., $1.1 million;
- Capital Health System, $989,086;
- The Center for Great Expectations Inc., $786,524; and
- Robins Nest, $635,286.
The programs will serve women in Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester, Mercer, Ocean, Salem, Hunterdon, Middlesex, Somerset, and Passaic counties.
Five contracts of $55,000 each for alternative methods of pain management for older adults was awarded to community facilities.
The five contracts, funded through the federal Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration State-Targeted Response to Opioid Crisis grant, were awarded to:
- Center for Prevention and Counseling Inc. (Newton);
- Children’s Aid and Family Services (Paramus);
- NCADD Hudson DBA Partners in Prevention (Secaucus);
- Prevention Resources (Flemington); and
- Rowan College at Burlington County (Mount Laurel).
