Location Of Mobile Clinic Puts Patients' Lives At Risk

Nearly 200 people are risking their lives, every day, to get the medication they need. At least that's what two local business owners claim. They have a front row seat to what they call a very dangerous situation.

So they shot videotape of what they saw and sent it to KIRO 7’s Amy Clancy.

Clancy and the Consumer Investigators started shooting surveillance video of their own that shows people dodging traffic night and day, scurrying from the Metro bus stop across four lanes and fresh skid marks to a parked camper.

With kids, with crutches and canes but no crosswalk, at least 180 people every day, six days a week, brave busy Airport Way South in Seattle to get their methadone tablets to battle heroine and prescription opiate addictions.

Just yards away, Kurt MacMillan runs his business, A Better Roofing Company. He tells Clancy that every honk of a horn, every screech of a tire, makes him fear the worst.

"You almost don’t want to look, because you know what’s going to happen,” he says. “Somebody is going to get seriously injured or killed out there.”

MacMillan and his brother Scott say the city of Seattle and Evergreen Treatment Services told them last July that ETS would be parking its mobile methadone clinic across from the brothers' retail roofing business. And that the mobile clinic, supported through private and taxpayer money, would be at the site from 5 a.m. to 11 a.m. Monday through Saturday.

At first, the MacMillans objected for fear the methadone patients would scare away potential customers. But after watching the patients dodge traffic day-in, day-out, the brothers say they quickly became fearful of something else.

"Somebody’s going to die,” Scott MacMillan told Clancy during a visit to the location. “Somebody’s going to get hit and killed. If it’s not one of the patients, it’s going to be somebody in a vehicle trying to avoid the patients.”

Within weeks of the clinic's arrival, Scott MacMillian shot videotape that shows a patient nearly being struck by a truck. He e-mailed it to the city and ETS, arguing the mobile clinic should be moved to a safer location, one he says “where there’s crosswalks.”

City and E-T-S officials visited the site. But four months later, the mobile clinic is still there.

Frustrated by what they claim is a lack of response, the brothers emailed the same video to KIRO 7. Scott MacMillan says, “they’re just not motivated to provide a safer environment, a healthy environment for their patients to receive their treatments.”

But Ron Jackson, Executive Director of Evergreen Treatment Services disagrees, telling Clancy “of course I’m concerned about the safety of the patients.”

Jackson claims ETS and the city are taking the brothers' concerns very seriously, but says in 10 years of operating the mobile clinic, often on four-lane streets just as busy as Airport Way South, only one patient has been hit by a car, resulting in serious injuries. He also says that accident happened in a crosswalk.

Jackson believes the current site across from A Better Roofing Company has everything ETS needs : Bus stops, privacy, parking, and industrial zoning.

"We’d be happy to stay there forever,” Jackson tells Clancy. But pressure by the brothers is one reason ETS is currently looking for a new location. Jackson explains: "You don’t want to be where you’re not welcome.” Clancy: “So, you’re responding?” Jackson: “Yeah, I think we are. I mean, we’re certainly moving as quick as we can.”

With the nights getting longer and the weather getting worse, the MacMillans hope the move comes quickly.

"We’re guessing, before the end of this year, we’ll see something happen out there” worries Kurt MacMillan.

Jackson tells Clancy, he doesn’t know exactly when the mobile methadone clinic will move, but says a deal is close and that the new site will have a crosswalk. But, he admits, whether the patients will use it is something he cannot predict.

Clancy asked to talk with city of Seattle officials about their role in choosing locations for the mobile methadone clinic, but the city referred all questions to Jackson.

If you'd like more information about Evergreen Treatment Services, click here: http://www.evergreentreatment.org/.