To CODA’s employees, supporters and partners in health:
I want to let you know of a change happening at CODA – one made after careful evaluation of patients’ needs and our agency’s resources. Effective immediately, CODA will no longer operate its 7-bed withdrawal management program in Tigard. This will allow us to shift support to our other outpatient, opioid treatment, and residential programs in Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas and Clatsop counties where we served some 5,000 patients last year.
CODA added withdrawal management services (often referred to as detox) in 1995. The work in this program has become increasingly complex. Withdrawal management, as an established practice, has grown from offering simple observation and a safe place to sleep, to requiring highly sophisticated, medically managed services delivered by a multidisciplinary team of licensed professionals. The development of this evidence-based medical model for detoxification and management is a positive and much-needed kind of progress, but the costs and staff demands make them unrealistic for smaller-capacity programs like CODA’s.
All of us at CODA — myself, our Board of Directors and our staff — are keenly aware that this change represents a reduction in resources for our community, and we hope to mitigate that by transitioning these beds into residential services as soon as is feasible.
In the meantime, CODA staff will continue to focus on the areas where we excel and where demand is growing: advancing the use of medications in the treatment of substance use disorders; developing new partnerships and pathways into care; eliminating barriers to treatment accessibility; and showing the community there is hope in recovery.
Thank you for all you do to support recovery in our community.
Alison Noice
Executive Director
CODA, Inc