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Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Report: Opioid crisis hitting hospitals hard

WASHINGTON — A new report shows that hospitals are straining under a new influx of victims of the opioid crisis.

A report by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality tracked opioid-related inpatient hospital stays and emergency-room visits for 2014 and found that the rate of the former went up 64 percent over the numbers from 2005, while the latter nearly doubled.

Maryland is one of the most troubled states in this regard: The state had one of the highest rate of inpatient stays related to opioids in 2014, the report said, at 442.7 men per 100,000 in population and 367.2 women. They had the highest rate of emergency-department visits, with 353.5 men per 100,000 and 251.1 women.

With regard to inpatient stays, Maryland ranked in the top 25 percent in three of the four age groups specified by the study: 1 to 24, 25 to 44 and 45 to 64, ranking in the middle only in the 65-and-up group. For emergency-department visits, Maryland was in the top one-quarter in all age groups. 

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3 comments:

bob pinto said...

Deal Island has had a crack problem even since 2001.

Anonymous said...

You're absolutely right there!! Ran into an old acquaintance from deal island and she scared me to death, looked like a walking skeleton. An absolutely beautiful woman in her 30's 40's now barely ,80 lbs missing teeth and skin like an alligator

Anonymous said...

Let's be a little more realistic here its no longer an opioid epidemic but a suicide epidemic. Call it what it truly is. These people know that the drugs they're buying and choosing to inject in their bodies are lethal and are killing people daily.