美国国家公共电台 NPR Counting The Heavy Cost Of Care In The Age Of Opioids

 

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

The declaration of an opioid emergency by President Trump² has put the focus on the need for treatment. And now some communities are asking who will pay. NPR's Allison Aubrey reports on the rising costs of treating the epidemic³.

ALLISON AUBREY, BYLINE⁴: Like a lot of communities around the country, Baltimore has seen an uptick in deaths from opioids.

LEANA WEN: Here in Baltimore City I see the impact of the opioid epidemic every single day. We have two people in our city dying from overdose every day.

AUBREY: That's the city's health commissioner⁵, Leana Wen. Part of her strategy to tackle the problem is to make the lifesaving drug naloxone, known by the prescription⁶ name Narcan, available to all residents.

WEN: If somebody is having an opioid overdose, they have stopped breathing. And Narcan can be given as a nasal spray. And within 30 seconds or so of getting Narcan, that person can be walking and talking again.

AUBREY: Wen says they've prevented a lot of deaths by getting this drug into the hands of more people. But now, she says, her city has a problem.

WEN: We're out of money for purchasing Narcan. We're having to ration¹ this medication. And every day I have community members, community leaders, faith leaders contacting us because they want to have Narcan available in order to save people's lives.

AUBREY: People can purchase the drug at pharmacies⁷, but at a cost of about $125 many people can't afford it. So Wen says she'd like a commitment from the Trump administration to help pay. And she'd like the administration to negotiate with manufacturers to decrease the price of the opioid antidote⁸.

WEN: We know that treatment works, but we don't have the money for treatment.

AUBREY: How to pay for drugs is not the only issue. A recent study of urban hospital systems finds a significant spike⁹ in the cost of treating people who end up in intensive care after an overdose. Here's the study author, Jennifer Stevens.

JENNIFER STEVENS: These are patients who have already survived to admission and have significant complications from an overdose itself.

AUBREY: Stevens is a critical care doctor at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. She says when opioid users have been unconscious for an extended period, they can come in in really bad shape.

STEVENS: You can have kidney injury or failure. And you can have aspirated and given yourself a big pneumonia¹⁰ that requires a ventilator to help you through that.

AUBREY: Stevens says the number of overdose patients needing treatment in the ICU has increased about 34 percent between 2009 and 2015. And the average cost of care has shot up from about $58,000 to $92,000 per person.

STEVENS: So that's an increase of nearly 60 percent.

AUBREY: Stevens says it's not just the costs that are rising. The mortality rate of overdose patients admitted to the ICU is up, too. Her study found that opioid deaths in the ICU nearly doubled during the study period.

STEVENS: In spite of everything we can do we're still seeing a rise in mortality. And I should say that's certainly - it's a call to arms that everything that we're doing isn't enough.

AUBREY: These new numbers reinforce what's now clear - the epidemic has achieved a new sense of urgency. Allison Aubrey, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE XX SONG, "A VIOLENT NOISE")

1 ration   

n.定量(pl.)给养，口粮；vt.定量供应

参考例句：

• The country cut the bread ration last year.那个国家去年削减面包配给量。
• We have to ration the water.我们必须限量用水。

2 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

3 epidemic   

n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的

参考例句：

• That kind of epidemic disease has long been stamped out.那种传染病早已绝迹。
• The authorities tried to localise the epidemic.当局试图把流行病限制在局部范围。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 commissioner   

n.（政府厅、局、处等部门）专员，长官，委员

参考例句：

• The commissioner has issued a warrant for her arrest.专员发出了对她的逮捕令。
• He was tapped for police commissioner.他被任命为警务处长。

6 prescription   

n.处方，开药；指示，规定

参考例句：

• The physician made a prescription against sea- sickness for him.医生给他开了个治晕船的药方。
• The drug is available on prescription only.这种药只能凭处方购买。

7 pharmacies   

药店

参考例句：

• Still, 32 percent of the pharmacies filled the prescriptions. 但仍然有32%的药剂师配发了这两张药方。 来自互联网
• Chinese herbal pharmacies, and traditional massage therapists in the Vancouver telephone book. 中药店，和传统的按摩师在温哥华的电话簿里。 来自互联网

8 antidote   

n.解毒药，解毒剂

参考例句：

• There is no known antidote for this poison.这种毒药没有解药。
• Chinese physicians used it as an antidote for snake poison.中医师用它来解蛇毒。

9 spike   

n.长钉，钉鞋；v.以大钉钉牢，使...失效

参考例句：

• The spike pierced the receipts and held them in order.那个钉子穿过那些收据并使之按顺序排列。
• They'll do anything to spike the guns of the opposition.他们会使出各种手段来挫败对手。

10 pneumonia   

n.肺炎

参考例句：

• Cage was struck with pneumonia in her youth.凯奇年轻时得过肺炎。
• Pneumonia carried him off last week.肺炎上星期夺去了他的生命。