Garfield County is on the brink of a significant development in its healthcare landscape: the opening of a drug and alcohol withdrawal management (detox) facility. The region has gone over a decade without such a center, with the last one being operated by Colorado West, within the Garfield County Jail, which closed its doors in 2012.
Colorado West underwent significant transformation and expansion in 2013, reemerging as Mind Springs Health and West Springs Hospital. Currently, Mind Springs Health is the largest provider of mental health and addiction treatment in Western Colorado.
The facility, scheduled to open during the first quarter of 2024, will be located at 2802 South Grand Avenue in Glenwood Springs — at the rear of the current Mind Springs Health headquarters. It will be an eight-bed dormitory-style facility for both women and men.
Amy Cooper, Mind Springs Health’s executive vice president of operations, said the Glenwood Springs location will be their second on the Western Slope. On Aug. 14, the Mind Springs Health withdrawal center in Grand Junction changed from an ASAM Level-3.2 to an ASAM Level-3.7-WM care facility.
Those codes — established by the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) — define the type of care delivered. A Level-3.2 model is residential, whereas a Level-3.7-WM care facility is a medical model, specializing in withdrawal management support that includes comprehensive care tailored to individuals with substance use disorders, including supervised detoxification to manage withdrawal symptoms safely.
The history of the Glenwood Springs project goes back to October 2019, when community stakeholders recognized the need to intervene in an unending cycle of individuals experiencing substance use disorder, being taken to either the hospital emergency room and/or sometimes ending up in the county jail.
The City of Glenwood Springs took a proactive approach by assembling a group of stakeholders, which included: healthcare workers from Mind Springs, Valley View Hospital, Grand River Health, police and emergency medical personnel and local addiction counselors.
That group later morphed into the Medical Model Withdrawal Management Governance Committee, charged with overseeing all aspects of the facility project. In addition, there are government representatives from Garfield County, Glenwood Springs, Carbondale, Parachute and Rifle. Each municipality has contributed funds to the project.
Cooper said the total price tag for the project will come in at about $1.8 million. The project started with $700,000 in economic stimulus funds granted through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).
One factor, first experienced during the pandemic but continuing today, is higher construction costs caused by expensive shipping and production delays.
“What happened since the beginning of the project until now is that … we saw building costs increase exponentially,” Cooper said.
The Governance Committee is seeking $500,000 to complete construction. According to Cooper, the committee plans to apply for a Garfield County Federal Mineral Lease District grant. In addition, Garfield County Commissioner Tom Jankovsky is applying for a $500,000 grant from the Colorado Opioid Abatement Council.
However, Cooper assured, “Mind Springs is committed to paying for that [the additional funding] if we’re not able to obtain grants or other funding.”
Carbondale Trustee Lani Kitching, said the average admission time is anticipated to be between three to five days. And, five new jobs will be created to cover 24-hour nursing care, general support, intake and transportation.
“It’s job creation along with a much-needed public service in a great mid-valley location.” Kitching added.
The new facility should reduce the burden on emergency room staff and law enforcement.
Cooper said that law enforcement “will be able to bring people right to our door.” She added, “If something comes up and they are medically unstable, we can take them back to the emergency room and then transport them back to detox.”
Instead of needing to seek medically-managed care in Denver or even Salt Lake, a Garfield County facility will allow people to be close to their families and their support systems.
“Once they’re done with the withdrawal part, the treatment part is what comes next and that’s where the real work begins,” said Cooper.
Visit www.mindspringshealth.org for more information about Mind Springs and its services.