VA Steps Up Efforts To Help Veterans Fighting Opioid Addiction

Last winter, a veteran was revived with Narcan after he overdosed on heroin and collapsed just outside the doors of the VA hospital in West Haven. In 2016, another veteran at the West Haven facility was not so lucky. He died of an overdose in a public restroom. To battle this growing scourge, Connecticut’s VA Healthcare has implemented initiatives to care for more than 1,000 veterans addicted to opioids and the federal government has awarded Yale University School of Medicine $9.7 million to research nondrug treatment for pain in veterans and military personnel, and provide national leadership in the effort. VA initiatives include: equipping nonmedical staff and veterans with medication that reverses overdoses; requiring psychiatric emergency room physicians to be licensed to prescribe drugs that reduce opioid cravings; and offering alternatives to opioids for pain treatment.