Mississippi Receives A Multi-Million Dollar Grant For Community Health Centers

MONROE COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – Mississippi receives several million dollars in grant money for community health centers.

Eighteen community health centers across the state will receive a little over 5 million dollars in federal funding.

One of the community health centers receiving grant money is in Smithville.

The money will go towards several things, including starting and expanding treatments for opioid and substance abuse.

“Sometimes, people can’t do it, just you know, cold turkey.”

Access Family Health Services sees that struggle with their patients everyday.

Executive Director Marilyn Sumerford says the medical facility will use the more than 250- thousand dollar grant to battle a growing opioid crisis in the area and across the country.

“A component of this grant is the medication assisted treatment, we will be expanding that. We are doing some M.A.T. therapy now, but we will be expanding that to help people transition off of the opioid.”

She says the money allows the center to expand current treatments and develop others.

“We’ll be able to reach people that are really at the end of their of their rope because they’re, you know, the supplies tightening, all of the providers are nervous, nobody wants to lose their license, but at the same time, you have people that have legitimate pain issues.”

The money will continue to help centers to direct people to the treatment they need.

“We just want to help them find the appropriate medications and look for other options because it’s not always a medication. In our culture, a lot of times, we feel like that a pill fixes everything.”

The grant will give users more options than opening a pill bottle.

“Through counseling and combinations of other types of other treatment options, then we can help people to greatly improve their quality of life.”

Pharmacist Michelle George believes the grant money will cut down on opioid prescriptions.

“We’ll see different prescriptions coming through to help them wing off of that, so that they can make the changes that they’re warning to. I think that there still will be prescriptions because there’s always a need for those, it’s just being able to screen when it’s more appropriate and when you can make a change.”

U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith announced the federal grant awards on Wednesday.