After almost two years of on-and-off planning, a detoxification center in New Ulm has been approved.

Brown County Welfare Board Wednesday agreed to fund operation of such a detox center, to be located on the fourth floor of St. Alexander Home, next to Loretto Hospital.

Various detox suggestions had surfaced briefly during the past 23 months but had died an inglorious death. About two months ago administrators at Loretto Hospital, Brown County Welfare and Sioux Trails Mental Health Center started talking and the sessions paid off Wednesday.

The detox unit will be operated by Sioux Trails staff and funded and used by Brown and hopefully Watonwan counties. Sioux Trails staff presented the proposal Wednesday night to two Watonwan County commissioners; formal consideration is set for a May 23 board meeting.

Target date for opening the center is July 1 or 15.

The detox center will have room for four clients to start with, using four of the six small bedrooms on the fourth floor at St. Alexanders. A large room which was the operating room when St. Alexanders was the hospital (before the new Loretto hospital was built) will be fixed up as a living-day room with easy chairs, and sofas.

Sioux Trails will now hire staff for the detox center and Loretto Hospital will paint the fourth floor areas to be used and arrange for furnishings.

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STAFFING the detox facility will be four full-time and one part-time technicians to be trained by Sioux Trails. One technician will be on duty at all times, 24 hours each day,watching the clients, making sure they are comfortable, giving medication as directed by the doctor and nurse.

Joe McDonough, alcohol coordinator at Sioux Trails, told the welfare board the technicians will be like “baby sitters” or hospital orderlies. Their pay is budgeted at $2.50 per hour.

The supervising nurse on duty at Loretto will go to the detox area whenever a client is admitted, to determine if a doctor needs to see the client. The hospital will reimbursed for this time, at $5.50 per hour.

The physician on call at Loretto, under the proposal, would be available for medical treatment needed in the detox area, his fee paid by Sioux Trails. Drunks presently brought in to New Ulm hospitals are seen by the on-call doctor if necessary.

A full-time counselor-director will evaluate each client during his stay at the detox center and recommend referral to the proper agency, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, Sioux Trails, or the long-range alcohol treatment program at St. Peter.

Enforcement agencies explaining the detox center to them and to the public,and make sure the volunteer transportation system works effectively. His salary is budgeted at $8.500.

Meals will be served from the hospital kitchen and billed to the detox center at $2 per meal. Rent for the entire fourth floor will be $400 per month and will include utilities, furnishings, linens, cleaning and maintenance. The hospital originally asked for $764 per month to cover its costs but Sioux Trails said they couldn’t pay more than $400. McDonough noted Loretto was willing to participate as a service to the community as well as to get some return on the empty space.

Sister Odelia, Loretto administrator,said the fourth floor has been empty because it has only six small bedrooms and is so far away from the hospital and the rest of home. The fourth floor can be reached either by stairway from the first floor of the home or by elevator. It is thus somewhat isolated and inebriates brought in could not easily slip away.

The Sioux Trails proposal includes $2,500 in the budget for transportation costs and the center will pay 12 cents per mile plus $2per hour for a minimum of two hours to encourage AA members and private citizens to transport drunks to the center. The money would not be paid to police, deputies or family members.

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McDONOUGH said it will take up to a year to get the detox center functioning,that experience at other centers has been one of slow acceptance and use. The approval given Wednesday was for funding through the balance of 1974. The 1975 detox budget will be presented for approval next December.

The total budget for a year of operation was put at $62,200. Of this, federal funds are estimated at $32,650; state funds at $19,700; county funds at $8,800; money from clients at $1,000.

The county share would be divided, according to the proposal, between Brown and Watonwan counties on the basis of how much population they each have: 68 per cent or $6,000 paid by Brown and 32 per cent or $2,800 paid by Watonwan.

If Sibley or Nicollet counties decide to send residents from their counties who live near New Ulm to the New Ulm detox center those counties would pay their share of the local costs, depending on how much of their population were designated to use the center. Nicollet County board has been approached about setting up a detox center in St. Peter but no decision has been made.

If clients are able to pay for use of the detox center themselves they would be billed, but experience at other centers has put this share very low. Cost per day per client based on the present budget comes out to $57.

Clients will be brought in by police,sheriff’s deputies, friends or relatives, or can come in on their own. They will generally stay three days at the detox facility, because 72 hours is the minimum to get all alcohol out of the body of an inebriate, McDonough said.

Mrs. Marie Fier, welfare board member, noted the board okayed payment of $700 in bills to local hospitals Wednesday for “drying out” drunks. These were just bills received in the past month.

The proposal already has state approval, McDonough said.

Sioux Trails counties have been talking about detox since July 1972. A 1971 state law required mental health centers to provide or purchase detox services by July 1973. Sioux Trails counties used a Mankato detox center from April through December 1973 but since then have been using expensive hospital facilities and paying 100 per cent of the cost.

New Ulm Daily Journal

May 16, 1974