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An agreement has been reached regarding the operation of the Sobering Center in Santa Fe County. The Santa Fe County Board of County Commissioners this week approved a contract amendment to transfer the responsibility for the provision of detoxification services from CHRISTUS St. Vincent to the Santa Fe Recovery Center. Santa Fe Recovery Center will provide enhanced detox services including increased medical supervision by either a physician or a registered nurse, increased use of medical technicians, access to on-site treatment and counseling services and ongoing access to a full continuum of care including longer term treatment, and transitional housing.

Both Santa Fe County and CHRISTUS funds will support operations of the new center. A total of $300,000 in county funds will be matched by CHRISTUS St. Vincent, whose board voted to support the new service with community benefit funds of $487,550 per year. In addition, the County is contributing the value of rent in exchange for services provided by the Santa Fe Recovery Center to low income residents. Medicaid funds will also be leveraged for a total budget of about $1.1 million dollars to operate the Center.

The agreement to jointly fund the enhanced services culminated from months of dedicated work by all parties. CHRISTUS CEO Patrick Carrier stated that the support of the new services is, “one of the many steps CHRISTUS was taking to develop a behavioral health line of service to meet the needs of Santa Fe County residents struggling with the disease of addiction.” Santa Fe County Manager Katherine Miller states that the joint funding resulted in, “a win-win situation for the County, the hospital, and most importantly our residents that are in need of such important services. “

The Recovery Center will take over operations on July 1, 2017.