DIXON — After attending a field hearing on the opioid overdose epidemic, State Rep. Tom Demmer said it’s going to take a concerted effort on many fronts in the fight against the growing problem sweeping the nation.

On Monday, Gov. Rauner’s new Opioid Overdose Prevention and Intervention Task force convened in Dixon to hear not only personal accounts of opioid addiction, but also from those in the front lines — the medical professionals and first responders.

Last year in Illinois 1,889 residents lost their lives as a result of opioid abuse.

“The message is loud and clear…we have to do this together. No one agency or organization can do it all. We have to have multiple agencies working together,” Demmer said.

Lt. Gov. Evelyn Sanguinetti and Dr. Nirav Shah, Dir. of the Ill. Dept. of Public Health, co-chaired the hearing at the Old Lee County Courthouse in Dixon Monday, the fifth stop of the task force’s tour.

“They are taking the opportunities to go out to communities across the state and hear from people who are working with those issues everyday,” Demmer said, talking about the task force.

One of the speakers at the hearing discussed her struggles with heroin addiction, sharing her personal account of how she found help and recovered, began working, and got her life back on track. Another speaker was a mother of a young man who struggled with addiction.

“We heard from a first person point of view along with a family’s perspective…very powerful stories,” Demmer said. “In addition we heard from Sinnissippi Centers and the Dixon Police Dept. These folks have tried to put together community partnerships coupled with different people throughout the process. Law enforcement, healthcare, mental health agencies, all places where people who struggle with addiction come across.”

So far, along with Dixon, the task force has held hearings in Chicago, Champaign, Mount Vernon, and Decatur.