Published: January 11, 2008 10:56 pm      

Clinic, county attempting to work out differences

The Southern Indiana Treatment Center’s new Clark County methadone clinic that created an uproar on its opening day is now in mediation with county leaders.

“If mediation resolves the issues — theirs and ours — a hearing will be unnecessary,” said attorney Dan Moore, who is representing the commissioners.

Clark County Commissioners filed an injunction in Clark Circuit Court Dec. 20 to shut down the clinic until safety and traffic issues are resolved. A trial date was set for Thursday, but Judge Daniel F. Donahue ordered both parties to mediation before a hearing will be held. A new court date is scheduled in two months.

“We can hopefully work this out,” said Tim Bohman, regional director for California-based CRC Health Group, which owns the local clinic.

The company filed suit in the U.S. District Court in Indianapolis Dec. 21, stating the commissioners are discriminating against the clinic’s patients under the American’s with Disabilities Act. Bill Hahn, with the law firm Barnes and Thornburg in Indianapolis, is representing CRC and declined to comment on the case.

“The authority for the existence of the clinic is under state law, but commissioners do have the authority to ensure that the Southern Indiana Treatment Center obliges in creating safe roads and highways and appropriate parking,” Moore said. “To say that asking for safe parking and traffic is related to the American’s with Disabilities Act is stretch.”

Local business owner James Whyland told the commissioners during a meeting that when he arrived at his business Dec. 12 — the day the methadone clinic opened —there were 35 cars in his parking lot and that machinery parts and grass were damaged.

Other residents talked of problems with the volume of traffic on Ind. 62 and Charlestown Pike, including parked cars along the side of the road. The lack of parking and volume of traffic at the clinic have decreased since opening day.

“It’s been quiet and seems to be running smoothly,” said Maj. Chuck Adams with the Clark County Sheriff’s department. “We’re still monitoring traffic, but we’re not writing any more tickets than we normally would — evidently they’re doing something right.”

Tim Bohman agrees with Adams’ assessment.

“The major problem causing traffic (on opening day) was information-technology failure because of the move,” he said.

At the previous locations in Jeffersonville, “some neighbors complained about patients in parking lots but there were no traffic jams.”

“We have 15 employees currently parking off-site and we are in the process of expanding parking,” Bohman said. “We’ve had no other traffic or parking issues that anyone told us about.”

The clinic formerly was located inside Jeffersonville city limits, but moved outside the incorporated area to expand services.

Some residents still see the volume of new traffic on Ind. 62 and surrounding streets as an issue. But, their problem seems to be less with traffic than a desire to rid their neighborhood of the methadone clinic and the patients it’s serving.

“It has gotten better; they’ve made a conscientious effort for better parking,” said Derrick Vogt, who lives on Charlestown Pike near the clinic. “But, I have teenage daughters and I’m scared to leave them home alone with those kind of people running around here. If that’s a clinic where they’re treating people, then it should be next to a hospital, not in the middle of rural U.S.A.”

According to county attorney Moore, issues with the clinic itself and the services it offers are a matter for the state, not the county. County leaders lack authority to govern the practices and construction of clinics like the new treatment center on Charlestown Pike. The commissioners maintain their problems with the clinic stem only from public-safety concerns, not the clinic’s treatment of addiction.

A head-on collision in Pennsylvania last year resulted in a successful lawsuit against Alliance Medical Services Inc., a methadone-treatment clinic. A Blair County judge there ruled that Alliance was responsible for corporate negligence in the death of Crystal M. Ickes.

Ickes received a prescribed dose of methadone less than an hour before the accident, and when combined with prescribed sleeping pills and antidepressants, caused her to either have a seizure or pass out at the wheel, according to published reports. Ickes’ estate also successfully sued her psychiatrist; Altoona Hospital, where he is employed; and the Altoona Regional Health System for negligence in her death.

The accident also left Matthew Stever — who she struck after crossing the median — with permanent neurological damage, though his lawsuit against the clinic proved unsuccessful in court. Blair County Judge Elizabeth Doyle dismissed the case because she said the clinic could not be held responsible.

“State law regulates and creates facilities like this for addiction treatment,” Moore said. “There are a mixture of views, from angry neighbors, people who have kids, CEOs and lawyers. It’s a complicated state law that gets handed to the commissioners.”