Medicine-assisted treatment for addiction offered on Peninsula

The availability of medicine-assisted treatment has increased significantly on the North Olympic Peninsula over recent years.

Since 2017 Olympic Medical Physicians in Port Angeles has developed a medicine-assisted treatment program, North Olympic Healthcare Network, also of Port Angeles, started and then expanded its Suboxone program, and new clinics are opening soon.

BayMark Health Services, awarded a contract through the Salish Behavioral Health Organization, will open a clinic in Port Angeles later this summer. BayMark is also opening a clinic in Bremerton.

BayMark offers Suboxone, Vivitrol and methadone, but primarily distributes methadone.

The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe is preparing to open a $20 million behavioral health center in Sequim in collaboration with Olympic Medical Center.

It will include medicine-assisted treatment for people in both Clallam and Jefferson counties.

Construction of the $7.2 million medication-assisted addiction treatment facility will begin in spring 2020 and completed by March 2021, officials said.

Phase 2 will consist of a 16-bed inpatient psychiatric evaluation and treatment facility that is expected to be built beginning in 2021 with completion anticipated in mid-2022.

A group called Save our Sequim is opposed to the planned treatment center in Sequim.