PublicSource | News for a better Pittsburgh (https://www.publicsource.org/category/health/)
Ashley Potts struggled with addiction for years before getting clean. She went back to school, eventually earning a Master of Social Work degree.
We never had a break in this constantly changing landscape. The realization that he was dying, piece by piece, was horrible, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
Casey Mullen served 26 months in a state penitentiary for convictions related to his narcotics addiction. Today, he is a lawyer in Pittsburgh.
Editor’s Note: On behalf of PublicSource, writer Timothy Maddocks spent six days between October 2017 and February 2018 embedded with street medicine teams. He attended the 2017 International Street Medicine Symposium and interviewed more than three dozen street medicine practitioners, from Pittsburgh and beyond. Though the days are still warm as we publish this story, soon people experiencing homelessness will again be subject to severe drops in temperature. This story sheds light on how street medicine practitioners aim to help the population throughout the year and how it plays out at the most critical times.
On a gray January morning, the team from Pittsburgh Mercy's Operation Safety Net follows the hollow sound of a dog barking in the distance to the tent that they’ve been looking for. And there it is, between the Allegheny River and the gravel bike trail: a mismatched collage of older tents and tarps, faded yellow and bright orange.
Kathy and Judy, with their drastically different backgrounds, share the common experience of a life-altering addiction.
"It's getting our people to admit [they are struggling]. ... We've become numb to the situation because we are dealing with it on a daily basis.”
Becoming dependent on drugs can happen to anyone. It’s important to keep in mind that we can all do a better job of decreasing stigma around drug use.
Pittsburgh City Council approves UPMC Mercy expansion plan despite opposition and requests for more time to consider the details of a community benefits agreement presented Monday night by Councilman Lavelle.
