
A detox facility in Falmouth that has provided care to nearly 500 patients on the Vineyard in the past eight years is moving off Cape Cod, which brings into question a key part of a nearly decade-old agreement between the detox facility and Island institutions.
With no detox facility on the Island, Gosnold Behavioral Health has worked with Martha’s Vineyard Community Services and Martha’s Vineyard Hospital to provide the service for patients. It is the first step in getting treatment for alcohol or other substance-use disorder. Key to the agreement, which originated in 2016, is providing a short ride from the Woods Hole Steamship Authority terminal to the facility in Falmouth, which has been operating near Falmouth Hospital since the 1980s.
Without transportation provided, health officials on the Island worry that residents trying to get help will be deterred by liquor stores or other last-minute decisions.
“It’s an essential service,” said Robert Cropper about providing a ride from Woods Hole. Cropper is the director of recovery management services at the Red House Peer Recovery Support Center. He notes that they coordinate with detox facilities in other parts of the state and in New Hampshire, which all provide the transportation service to their facilities.
But recently, Gosnold officials said that they are expected to move to a new location in Wareham this fall, after Cape Cod Healthcare, the owners of the Falmouth property, declined to renew Gosnold’s lease. Reached by The Times and asked if they will continue to offer the service of providing transportation to the facility from Woods Hole, Gosnold officials say it is still too early in their plans to commit.
Richard J. Curcuru, president and CEO of Gosnold, said that when the agreement with the Island hospital and M.V. Community Service was put in place in 2016, the ferry was right around the corner from Gosnold.
“It is easy to just get a cab — it’s only a couple of miles,” he said. With the move off-Cape, that’ll change. “We are adding 30 miles, so that’s a difficulty. It’s too early to make that commitment.”
The 2016 agreement, at the time that it was signed, was at the height of the opioid epidemic. Prior to the memorandum of understanding, the lack of an on-Island detox facility, combined with a statewide shortage of detox beds, added another layer of difficulty for Islanders trying to get help during an already fraught and time-sensitive event. The agreement was seen as filling a critical gap in service.
And it’s been well-used. Gosnold, in a statement, said that it has treated just under 500 Vineyard residents since the agreement was signed. With the opiate epidemic no longer at the height of prior years, Cropper, at the Red House, said that it still refers a few patients a week to the facility, mainly for alcohol-related substance use. He said that slightly over 80 percent of patients seeking detox on the Island are alcohol-related.
While Gosnold has said that it is too early to commit to providing the transportation service, they are working to find a solution to the transportation issue with their Island partners.
“It is far too early to know how this move will affect the current agreement, but Gosnold is committed to serving the residents of the Island, and plans to work with both M.V. Community Services and M.V. Hospital before the move to develop a plan that is beneficial to all organizations and those residents of M.V. who require treatment,” Curcuru said in a statement.
Officials on the Island side of the agreement also say that they are committed to making sure that patients seeking detox will be provided transportation from Woods Hole.
“We always figure out a way, because we have to,” said J. Scott Turton, interim CEO of M.V. Community Services. “We can’t leave someone hanging who has that need. We’ve always had to be creative like this, because we’re a smaller geographical area with unique challenges.”
Turton said that it will come down to finances, whether it is Community Services or Gosnold that will pay for the transportation. But at the moment, with Gosnold’s move just announced, Turton said it’s too early to figure out the details. “It’s such an essential service. We gotta find a way to get them there,” he said.
Hospital officials on the Island say they are also committed to working to ensure the practice continues. “We value our ongoing relationship with Gosnold, and continue to evaluate all aspects of our operations to best serve the needs of our community,” Claire Seguin, chief nurse and vice president of operations, said in a statement.
Curcuru said that they expect to be in their new location in Wareham by the end of the year, and he expects it to be an upgrade from the Falmouth facility they have been operating in since the 1980s.