WSB/3/6
Sponsored by Oluwaroju Miller, Tanish Sonone, Naji Ghandour of Lausanne Collegiate School
This legislation was filed in the Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services category
Presented as part of the YIG Volunteer 2024 conference
| 1 | BE IT ENACTED BY THE TENNESSEE YMCA YOUTH IN GOVERNMENT |
| 2 | |
| 3 | Section 1: Terms in this act will be defined as follows: |
| 4 | (a) Rural Area - A region in Tennessee with a population density of less than 500 people per |
| 5 | square mile. |
| 6 | (b) Opioid - A class of addictive drugs that are utilized to relieve the user of moderate to |
| 7 | severe pain. |
| 8 | (c) Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) - Centers which involve the consumption of |
| 9 | medications, such as buprenorphine and methadone, alongside |
| 10 | counseling and behavior therapies to aid the treatment of substance use disorders. |
| 11 | (d) Hub and Spoke Model - a system of medication for opioid use disorder which has 2 parts: |
| 12 | Hubs and Spokes. In regional Hubs patients receive their |
| 13 | initial treatments of buprenorphine, methadone, or naltrexone while workers from the |
| 14 | Spokes obtain training for certification to use the |
| 15 | aforementioned medication. There are also Spokes which are in rural communities where |
| 16 | patients can receive ongoing care with the already listed |
| 17 | medication. |
| 18 | |
| 19 | Section 2: |
| 20 | (a) There are only 22 public medication assisted treatment (MAT) centers within the whole of |
| 21 | Tennessee. |
| 22 | (b) As of 2021 there are 56.6 overdose deaths per 100,000 people in Tennessee making |
| 23 | Tennessee’s overdose death per capita the second highest in the |
| 24 | country. |
| 25 | |
| 26 | Section 3: |
| 27 | (a) This act will create an effective opioid addiction treatment infrastructure that models the |
| 28 | Hub and Spoke system by instituting Hubs within pre- |
| 29 | existing MAT centers and funding the treatment centers. The Hubs will train healthcare |
| 30 | workers in rural areas of Tennessee in treating opioid |
| 31 | addiction allowing the creation of Spokes within the rural communities. |
| 32 | (b) Spokes will be developed at pre-existing medical clinics in rural locations and previous |
| 33 | workers at the clinics will still be allowed to continue |
| 34 | their work. There must be one Spoke center per every 50-mile radius in Tennessee. Specific |
| 35 | locations will be determined by Hub centers. |
| 36 | (c) Furthermore, the training will allow these healthcare workers in the Spokes to distribute |
| 37 | medicine such as buprenorphine, methadone, or naltrexone |
| 38 | |
| 39 | (d) The funding distributed to the programs will go towards training healthcare workers in rural |
| 40 | communities at the Hubs, supplying |
| 41 | buprenorphine/methadone/naltrexone to the Spoke centers in rural locations within |
| 42 | Tennessee, development of current MAT centers into Hub locations, |
| 43 | and the Hub’s respective Spoke center developmental costs. |
| 44 | |
| 45 | Section 4: |
| 46 | (a) The overall cost of this bill will be 30,000,000 USD per year. |
| 47 | (b) All funding for this bill will be extracted from the Tennessee Department of Mental Health |
| 48 | and Substance Abuse Services (TNDMHSAS). |
| 49 | |
| 50 | Section 5: |
| 51 | (a) The funding will be distributed to each of the following MAT centers within Tennessee |
| 52 | evenly for the reasons mentioned in Section 3 (d): |
| 53 | (i) BHG Memphis North, BHG Memphis South, BHG Memphis Midtown, BHG Dyersburg, BHG |
| 54 | Jackson, BHG Paris, BHG Savannah, BHG Memphis CTC, Clarksville |
| 55 | Treatment Center, BHG Columbia, BHG Madison, BHG Murfreesboro, BHG Nashville, |
| 56 | Hermitage CTC, South Nashville CTC, Bradley County CTC, Volunteer |
| 57 | CTC, BHG Knoxville - Central, BHG Knoxville - Bernard, TLC Maryville, New Hope |
| 58 | Treatment Center, Overmountain Recovery. |
| 59 | |
| 60 | Section 6: |
| 61 | (a) All laws or parts of laws in conflict with this are hereby repealed. |
| 62 | |
| 63 | Section 7: |
| 64 | (a) This act shall take effect January 1, 2025, the public welfare requiring it. |
| 65 |