Around Maryland

Maryland pharmacies aren’t stocking enough of the addiction treatment drug buprenorphine, threatening efforts to stem the growing number of overdose deaths from opioids like fentanyl. The drug, also known by the brand name Suboxone, has been proven to reduce cravings and withdrawal symptoms that can send people to buy untrustworthy street drugs.

Several times a week these days, the woman who helped keep a roof over people’s heads during the pandemic gets a similar email from residents: “Do you have any rental assistance money? I need help.” Julie Peters, now the chief communications officer at SHORE UP Inc. and formerly the program manager for the rental assistance program at the Salisbury-based organization, helped her agency, in a few years, administer more than $8 million to more than 1,200 renter households on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

The World Recycling Company has agreed to pay $200,000 as part of a settlement with the state over unauthorized disposal of solid waste at facilities in Baltimore City and Prince George’s County. According to the lawsuit, state inspectors repeatedly found illegally stored piles of trash at both facilities over the last nine years as litter and debris entered storm drains and polluted surrounding bodies of water.

Both Morgan State University and the unit representing nearly 400 of the institution’s employees have tentatively agreed on a contract they have been negotiating since 2020, the union confirmed Tuesday. The final contract – set to last until July of 2026 – will grant workers a flat dollar amount increase to their salaries, which will also receive a percentage increase based on years of service, according to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 3, which oversees nearly 45,000 public service workers in Maryland including the local representing Morgan State staff.

Three times a week, on average, a police car pulls up to a school in Wicomico County on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. A student is brought out, handcuffed and placed inside for transport to a hospital emergency room for a psychiatric evaluation. Over the past eight years, the process has been used at least 750 times on students. Some are as young as 5 years old.

Would you rather be wet from rain or wet from sweat? If you chose the latter, you’re in luck: Artscape is scheduled for August in 2024. The annual free arts festival will take place Aug. 2 through Aug. 4, according to Barbara Hauck, communications manager of Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts. During a press conference Monday about a bill requiring procurement of electric vehicles in Baltimore, Mayor Brandon Scott spoke about the news.

At any given time, the emergency department at the Johns Hopkins Howard County Medical Center is treating an average of 11 patients with mental health or substance use crises — in a unit equipped for just six of them. Behavioral health patients at the emergency room often wait 24 hours to be transferred to a facility with an open bed, said Dr. Shafeeq Ahmed, the hospital’s president.

It’s the time of year for giving — and for some, that includes swinging by a local food pantry to drop off a grocery bag of kitchen essentials. “The main thing that pantries need during the holiday season is support from their communities in any way, shape or form,” said Eileen Compton-Little, executive director of the Community Crisis Center, a Reisterstown food pantry founded in 1982. “Just because the pandemic’s over, doesn’t mean that we still don’t need help.”

Paramedic response times have become faster countywide as the Frederick County Division of Fire and Rescue Services has increased staffing and changed its strategies, officials said. Advanced life support (ALS) response times, involving paramedics, have decreased 24 seconds, according to Frederick County Fire Chief Tom Coe. https://www.fredericknewspost.com/news/politics_and_government/public_safety/paramedic-response-times-faster-as-fire-and-rescue-rolls-out-plan/article_a565c26c-ad11-59cc-83fe-6e0b1e062813.htmlBetween January and September, the average time from dispatch of a medic unit to the patient’s side was 8 minutes, 10 seconds.