STATEN ISLAND — Sen. Charles Schumer called for an "emergency surge" of federal funds to help treat newborn babies addicted to prescription drugs and heroin after an increase in the number on Staten Island in the past several years.
On Monday, Schumer called for a portion of $47 million allocated to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in the federal budget to be used for treatment, prevention and awareness of Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS).
"It’s become a sad fact that the latest victims of the prescription drug crisis in this country are the most vulnerable in our society, innocent babies," Schumer said in a statement.
"Thousands of infants are born each year with drug dependencies and, now that we have this federal funding in the budget, we must act by creating an emergency allocation of funding to help localities — like Staten Island — address and fight this tragically growing trend."
From 2009 to 2014, Staten Island had a 34.05 percent increase in the number of babies born with NAS, according to Newsday.
Last year, 11 babies were born with NAS at Staten Island University Hospital, which saw a 165 percent increase in cases from 2001 to 2014, the Staten Island Advance reported.
During the second week of November, six newborns were treated for NAS at Richmond University Medical Center, Schumer said.
The funding Schumer is pushing for — which will also go to other spots with an increase in NAS like Long Island — would be used to treat mothers and their babies with NAS, help them recover and try to stop the numbers from growing.
Staten Island has been in the throes of a prescription drug and heroin epidemic and has the highest number of unintentional overdose deaths from the drugs in the city between 2000 and 2014, according to the Department of Health.
Earlier this month, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that city pharmacies will sell the anti-overdose medication Naloxone without a prescription and increased the funding of Borough President James Oddo's anti-drug program in Staten Island schools.
