BENNINGTON — The state’s plan to establish a methadone clinic in Bennington has become a long-drawn-out project. The plan is entering its sixth year, with the treatment provider having changed for the third time and the clinic opening date still unclear.
The existing treatment provider, BayMark Health Services, is in the process of applying for a certificate of need from the Green Mountain Care Board, according to Deputy Health Commissioner Kelly Dougherty. New health care projects require such a certificate before they can proceed.
Dougherty said that, after multiple tries, BayMark recently found a contractor to renovate the clinic’s forthcoming location in downtown Bennington. Finding a building contractor, she said, had been the latest obstacle in setting up the methadone clinic — a “hub” in Vermont’s hub-and-spoke system of treating opioid use disorder.
Bennington currently just has “spokes,” or community sites that dispense the maintenance opioid medication naltrexone and buprenorphine, also known by the brand Suboxone. Methadone is only dispensed at “hubs,” with staff specially trained to offer high-intensity opioid medication.
The state health department said Acadia Healthcare, which originally signed up in 2018 to be the Bennington clinic’s treatment provider, backed out in March 2019 because it could not find an appropriate location in town.
The local hospital, Southwestern Vermont Medical Center, stepped in as replacement the following month. But due to the disruptions brought by the Covid-19 pandemic, Dougherty said, the medical center decided to drop the project in October 2021.
Since BayMark Health Services took over two years ago, it has found a location on Depot Street, in a strip mall building that previously housed a Family Dollar store. Dougherty said BayMark then had to renegotiate a lease with the building’s new owner and wait for the outcome of an easement-related lawsuit.
“It was just an unfortunate series of events that has made it so delayed,” she said in an interview. “If there aren’t any unforeseen issues, we’re optimistic that it will open well before the end of the year.”
A methadone clinic in St. Albans, which took about 18 months to set up, was the quickest to be established in the state, Dougherty said. The one in Bennington now holds the record for the slowest.
The Health Commissioner, Dr. Mark Levine, told a legislative committee in January that establlishing a methadone facility is extremely difficult, because it’s similar to setting up a pharmacy, which has to follow certain federal specifications and certifications.
“You’re essentially setting up a pharmacy that only serves a controlled substance, a scheduled controlled substance,” Levine said.
Representatives for BayMark Health Services, whose opioid treatment facilities fall under a company called BAART Programs, didn’t respond to multiple requests for an interview.
BAART Programs runs four of Vermont’s existing “hubs,” according to state health department spokesperson Ben Truman. They are located in Berlin, Newport, St. Albans and St. Johnsbury. Three other hubs — in Brattleboro, Rutland and South Burlington — are operated by other companies.
Some members of the Bennington recovery community said having a methadone clinic in town is crucial, because people have to otherwise travel to North Adams, in Massachusetts, or Brattleboro to get the medication.
Margae Diamond, director of the Turning Point Center of Bennington, said she knows at least 40 people who go to North Adams every day, a trip that takes about half an hour by car. Several head to Brattleboro, which is around an hour away.
“You can’t live like that,” Diamond said.
She said locals have been waiting for the methadone clinic to open for so long that its potential impact has been exaggerated in their minds.
“It’s a very important piece of the continuum of care for people with opioid use disorder,” Diamond said. “However, I just want to caution people that it is not like some amazing panacea dropping down from the sky.”
The health department said at least 65 people enrolled in Medicaid are receiving methadone in North Adams each month. Their treatment will shift to Bennington once the local hub is built, and more patients are expected to come.
“We typically say that a hub needs to have about 150 patients in order to sort of, like, break even, and we’re not concerned that that will be an issue in Bennington,” Dougherty said.
