"Health & Medical News"

A new addiction treatment center named for former Massachusetts first lady Kitty Dukakis will open at the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital in Jamaica Plain, Mass., the Boston Globe reported Sept. 30.

The wife of former governor and presidential candidate Mike Dukakis, Kitty went public with her personal story of addiction to alcohol and prescription drugs in 1990, as well as her experience with depression. She also founded the Friends of the Shattuck Shelter, now called hopeFound, a homeless shelter for men and women.

The Kitty Dukakis Treatment Center for Women has 32 beds and will serve post-detox patients in the early stages of recovery. The 28-day program will open in January and is expected to treat 300 women annually. Addiction, HIV, and post-traumatic stress counseling will be provided.

“This is way beyond a shelter. This is a shelter dedicated to women who have both drug and alcohol issues, and many of them trauma also,” Dukakis. “It’s an excellent program and I am thrilled to be honored this way.”

“I think as a person in recovery I am well aware that for everybody in the United States — and this it true in Massachusetts, too — the opportunities for treatment for people who need it are way down from what they were 25 years ago,” she added. “I will continue to advocate for folks to understand that this problem has not gone away.”

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