A New Bedford hospital says the Bristol County sheriff inflated the number of overdoses at the hospital when he spoke with President Trump late last week.
As Trump vetoed Congress' attempt to overturn his declaration of a national emergency Friday, Sheriff Thomas Hodgson implied the president’s immigration crackdown was justified by drugs coming across the border.
“In my county alone, one city, we have on average on second shift at our hospital in New Bedford, Massachusetts, 15 to 20 overdoses on second shift every day," Hodgson told the president. “That’s one example. This is happening all over the country,” he said, before thanking the president for his efforts to secure the border.
But Dr. Jennifer Pope, the chair of St. Luke's Hospital’s emergency department, says that statement is inaccurate.
“Based on data from our electronic health record and from firsthand experience from our staff, we’re seeing about two to three overdoses a day.”
Pope says it’s important to get the number right.
“We all want to address the issue and move the needle and find a way to help our community and families that are struggling with patients with opioid use disorder, but I think to address the issue and find solutions, it does require [as] accurate as possible numbers to ensure our collective success in battling this disease,” she said.
“I’m sorry this is coming down to, sort of, a numbers conversation,” Pope said. “But one overdose is one too many, and I’m glad we’re just having the conversation.”
The sheriff’s spokesman, Jonathan Darling, says Hodgson got the number from multiple current and former nurses.
“He feels very confident and very strongly about the numbers he got,” Darling said.
Darling declined to provide those nurses' names, saying the nurses were not authorized to speak on the hospital's behalf.
