PITTSBURGH — The opioid epidemic has been called a national emergency, and Pennsylvania Attorney General josh Shapiro has said it’s his top priority.
But what's been done on the local level to help is debatable at best, and a call for change is coming from one woman leaving her seat on Pittsburgh City Council.
Natalia Rudiak has spent the last eight years helping Pittsburgh as a city councilwoman.
Beginning next week, her influence will be held primarily outside council chambers, but she hopes to bring a renewed emphasis on the opioid epidemic.
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“At the city council table, we never talk about it. We never talk about it,” she said.
The problem has hit Pittsburgh's southern neighborhoods, like Beechview and Carrick, hard.
It's why Rudiak helped create the South Pittsburgh Opioid Action Coalition, and why she spent part of her farewell speech to council localizing the crisis.
She cited numbers from the city Department of Public Safety that indicate the overdose-reversal drug Naloxone was used 1,400 times in 2016 alone.
“There are neighborhoods in Pittsburgh that barely have 1,400 people,” she said.
Her hope is to get the city to do more to help those in need and those responding to these regular emergencies.
"Sometimes our first responders go the same people two, three or four times," she said. "It can be exhausting for first responders to keep doing this and find hope."
It's her hope that the importance of the issue inspires her former colleagues, which could lead to more money to fight this crisis.
“It's really important that we take that initiative forward over the next few years and again provide funding for our employees,” said Councilman Corey O’Connor.
Cox Media Group