B.C. government to help fund Mission addiction centre

The provincial government will provide a one-time grant of $650,000 to the Salvation Army's Cordula and Gunter Paetzold Rehabilitation Centre.

The centre, located northeast of Mission, is one of Canada's most recognized addiction treatment facilities, Housing and Social Development Minister Rich Coleman said in a news release.

The funding will go toward operating the centre's 90-day residential treatment and recovery program for men with alcohol and drug addictions.

The centre, which receives referrals from physicians, hospitals, regional detoxification centers, community agencies and other Salvation Army programs, admitted more than 700 men in 2007.

The funding is in addition to annual provincial funding of just over $768,000 provided through the Emergency Shelter Program, Coleman said.
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source: canada.com/vancouversun

Savings in alcohol, drug addiction treatment an Illusion

Nearly $18 million in state funds earmarked for alcohol and drug treatment was diverted to other uses in 2006, according to a watchdog agency report released last week.

If that sounds like a cost savings, think again.

In the same year, 1,185 men and women were sent back to prison because of probation violations. Fifty-seven percent are drug users, according to the Virginia Department of Corrections. The department expects these "technical violators" to increase to 3,000 inmates over the next five years.

This trend is one factor contributing to growth in the state's prison population, which will require Virginia to build one new prison a year for six years. Each new 1,000-bed prison will cost about $100 million to build and $25 million annually to operate.

Suddenly, an extra $18 million to help drug addicts kick the habit sounds like a good deal.

Analysts with the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission said the state is doing a poor job in evaluating which treatment and prevention programs are most effective, but it did find evidence that recidivism is lower among inmates who complete drug programs.

But drug treatment is not just for criminals behind bars. JLARC said few services are available for school dropouts and children of substance abusers. Adults indicated in a survey that they have trouble finding transportation and someone to watch their children so they can obtain drug treatment. Providers are unwilling to treat low-income people because the government-funded Medicaid program reimburses only a fraction of the true costs.

Drug treatment programs shouldn't be just about saving money. They should be motivated by the desire to save men, women and children from the misery of addiction. However, the financial benefits are clear. Eighteen million dollars won't solve all of the problems, but that money does nothing if it is left unused. A penny saved will cost Virginia far more in dollars and lives.
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source: The Virginian Pilot

Drug Rehab Centers in South Florida Cutting Back

Last week, Broward County auditors made a report that states Broward Addiction Recovery Center is being overspent upon immensely. Broward Addiction Recovery Center is a group of addiction treatment centers throughout the county. These drug rehab centers service people not just from Broward, but the entire South East Florida area. The auditors for the county determined that Broward Addiction Recovery Center is spending almost twice the national average on both round-the-clock inpatient care, and residential treatment programs.

The Broward Addiction Recovery Center insists that it is expenditures are warranted, due to higher drug abuse in Broward County and treatments that are more comprehensive. Because of this, the Florida substance abuse center is calling for a private auditor to conduct a new review of their programs. However, this news comes at a time when Broward County must cut $100 million in its budget.

Another factor facing South Florida drug rehab centers comes in the form of state cutbacks. As soon as July 1, substance abuse treatment centers all across Florida will be experiencing the effects of state budget cuts. Many will be forced to close their doors if they do not find private funding.

South Florida drug rehab centers will be feeling the effects of these fiscal cutbacks in the coming months. Centers like C.A.R.E. Florida in North Palm Beach could experience a large influx of those needing substance abuse treatment and counseling. Overcrowding could occur in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach Counties.

If you or someone you know is battling substance abuse, seek help. C.A.R.E. Florida is an innovative residential Florida drug rehab facility. Contact them 24 hours a day by calling 1-866-494-0866.
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source: http://www.transworldnews.com

Treatment backlog for addicts rises

ABU DHABI // A multimillion-dirham drugs awareness campaign has encouraged people to seek help for their addictions.

In a two-week period after the campaign’s launch in April, eight patients were admitted to the National Rehabilitation Centre (NRC), in contrast to a previous average of one case a month. There are 26 people on the waiting list and a further 120 people have indicated they would like to seek treatment.

The growing number of Emiratis addicted to drugs and alcohol prompted the NRC, a government agency, to launch the “Yes to Life” campaign, which aims to make people aware that drug addiction “is like any other disease and that there is treatment”.

“We have had a very large response to the campaign,” said Noura al Hosani, the campaign manager. “We really didn’t expect that much because this is a traditional society and it is difficult to talk publicly about drug addiction.”

To cope with the growing demand for treatment, 10 beds will be added by the end of the year.

“The last thing we want to do is launch such a campaign and then not have the capacity to help the people who are coming forward,” Ms Hosani said.

NRC social workers are fielding an average of 30 calls per day to the confidential helpline, and the centre also provides outpatient services and consultations to people on the waiting list until a space is available.

“We have to maintain this relationship with them,” Ms Hosani said. “We need to keep assuring these patients they will get the treatment and encourage them further.”

Addiction to alcohol has been the most common reason for admission, followed by cannabis, according to the NRC, while some have sought treatment for addiction to drugs such as heroin.

“The response to the campaign has been very positive,” she said. “People seem really appreciative that we are providing this treatment.”

However, not everyone has been willing to be brought into the public discussion on addiction.

Ms Hosani said some had shied away from accepting brochures or visiting exhibitions that had been set up in shopping malls.

“Some people don’t want to take part because of the association with the word ‘addiction’,” she said. “All we want to do is provide the right information, but maybe they are afraid someone might see them at the exhibition.”

“Yes to Life” was launched in the capital on April 1 and in Al Ain on May 15. Centres were expected to be in place across the emirate by 2012, Ms Hosani said. “It is our plan to cover all of Abu Dhabi emirate before 2012.”

The Al Ain campaign included an exhibition, a question-and-answer session for adults, public outreach efforts and a musical for children.

Plans are under way to extend the campaign to Al Gharbia in August and the NRC will also take part in summer camps for children over the holiday period.

The NRC is collecting data to measure the level of drug-abuse awareness, the impact of the campaign and whether attitudes towards addiction have changed.
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source: http://www.thenational.ae

State orders Wilmington detoxification facility to suspend operations

State officials have ordered a Wilmington facility that treats mental health emergencies and substance abusers to suspend its operations, calling conditions there detrimental to the health and safety of patients.

Southeastern Center for Mental Health, which operates the center, also faces $13,500 in penalties in connection with a number of alleged violations centering around the death of a 27-year-old woman late last year.

The woman, who is not named in the state report, had sought inpatient treatment at the center's facility-based crisis program for heroin addiction.

After being admitted and starting the detox process, the woman began complaining of chest pains and went back and forth between the center and hospital, according to a report by the state Department of Health and Human Services.

She collapsed at the South 17th Street facility on Dec. 27 and died later at the hospital. The original cause of death was listed as heroin overdose. But a pathologist with the state medical examiner's office concluded last month that the woman actually died from pneumonia.

The state pathologist said the examiner who came up with the initial cause of death did not check her heart tissue or run tests for heroin, but made his decision based on reports to him that two heroin packets were found in the woman's room after she was taken to the hospital.

"That's a pretty galloping pneumonia she had there, it didn't happen overnight," the pathologist was reported as saying in an interview to state regulators.

The suspension order, which Southeastern officials said they received Thursday, accuses the facility of neglect for failing to investigate the woman's 17 complaints of neck and back pain in the several days she was there and not communicating effectively with the hospital emergency department's physicians.

It points to the facility's nurses with not reporting the woman's low blood pressure to the on-call physician as required and for giving her a certain medication though a doctor's order said not to if her blood pressure was low.

The 60-page report also faulted Southeastern for not having a set policy of getting patients to and from the hospital emergency department, not providing proper supervision to prevent drugs from being snuck back in while they were at the hospital unattended and not reporting the woman's death properly.

The facility's medical director did not report the death to the state regulators within three days as required because it did not happen there, according to the findings.

Vicki Steele, chief financial officer for Southeastern, said facility officials are currently working on a plan of changes based on the cited violations. The plan will be submitted to the state.

"We are concentrating on the quality of care for the client," she said. "I would say that everything that we are recommending in our plan of correction has that in mind."

The center also can appeal the suspension as well as the penalty. Steele said officials would decide whether to do that once Southeastern's area director returns from vacation.

The facility stopped admitting people late last week and is referring those needing help to either area hospital emergency departments or private mental health providers, depending on the severity of the cases.

The center runs both a 12-bed detoxification center, where most of the violations were recorded by the state, and a crisis station.

The detoxification program can last up to two weeks, but averages about a week for most participants.

When the suspension order came down, the program was full. But only one person remained as of Wednesday to finish up their treatment protocol, center officials said.

The facility's other service, a crisis station, functions somewhat like a psychiatric emergency room, officials said, when someone is threatening to harm themselves or someone else or is going to be involuntarily committed.

Steele said Southeastern is discussing with the state about whether the crisis station's operations should be included in the ruling's suspension.

She said the crisis station sees an average of three to five people a day and as many as 30 a week.

"I'm very sorry this happened because it does affect a lot of citizens in our tri-county (service region)," she said. "We're working very diligently to make sure these clients are cared for.

"I think anytime you have a situation of this type, it's going to have lingering effects, but I'm hoping that we'll be able to get through this process and get through the plan of correction so the services can be restored."
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source: http://www.starnewsonline.com

On isolation and recovery – an excellent article by Ian Wardle

The past few months have been very interesting times for what I can only describe as an urgently needed recovery agenda in the UK.

Yesterday, we saw published online an erudite discussion on recovery and the UK treatment field by the CEO of Lifeline, Ian Wardle. He has written an excellent article, one which should be read by all people working in the treatment field, as well as by politicians and others who impact in one way or other on our efforts to help people overcome substance use problems.

I would love to devote a good deal of time discussing this article, but my three youngsters have come to stay for a week and have left me somewhat brain-dead. However, it would be wrong of me to say nothing about Ian’s article. So, ‘please keep quiet upstairs!’

I found Ian’s focus on the isolation of the treatment field and the implications of this isolation fascinating. In my opinion, there is no doubt that embedding drug treatment in the criminal justice system is greatly hurting our efforts to help people overcome substance use problems, as I will discuss in one my forthcoming Wired In Reflections.

The field is also hurting itself by getting bogged down in arguments about harm reduction vs. abstinence, as has been discussed in some of my other Blogs. As Ian points out, we are isolating ourselves from each other. This is unnecessary, as the recovery writings of Bill White and colleagues reveal.

Ian emphasises that we are becoming isolated from people outside this field. People from outside the field that I know (and trust) who are aware of what I am doing are horrified by some of the dogma they read in our field. They cannot believe that some people seem more interested in looking after the system than the clients.

Ian also points out that we are isolated from the new personalisation and recovery-orientated philosophies that are inspiring people in other sectors of health and social care. It has surprised me how many people in the drug field are so inward-looking – they don’t look to learn from other fields, which is naïve given the relatively new discipline in which we work.

I believe it was an excellent idea of Ian to focus on the isolation issue. It has certainly made me think about this issue more explicitly. There are a number of suggestions for the future way forward that are indicated by Ian’s article.

However, I felt that two messages may not have got come through strong enough – I apologise to Ian, if I have misread things. Firstly, there is a lot we can learn from the writings and actions of the US recovery movement. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel, but at the same time our recovery efforts in the UK will take us in some different directions.

Secondly, we must listen much more to people who are recovering or recovered from addiction – and learn from them. We generally do not do this well in the UK.

Thanks for a very thought-provoking article, Ian.
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source: http://davidclarkwired.blogspot.com/

Retired officers head to Ottawa to fight for Insite

OTTAWA — The organizers of Vancouver's safe-injection site took retired policemen from Australia and Britain - as well as a retired Vancouver officer - to Ottawa yesterday to plead for an extension of the site's licence.

With the June 30 expiry looming, Insite is trying to drum up support for its continued existence as a place in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside where addicts can inject their own illegal drugs in clean, supervised conditions.

The three retired policemen told reporters that closing the site would mean more deaths among the most vulnerable members of society - the poor and the uneducated - and would cost the criminal-justice system untold dollars if police were left to deal with overdoses.

"I have travelled halfway around the world to ask the Canadian government to allow the Vancouver safe-injection site, Insite, to keep operating," said retired officer Christopher Payne, formerly a detective sergeant with the Australian federal police in Sydney.

"Shutting down centres that do such good work would, I suggest, be just another heartless decision in what seems to be an endless war on drugs. It would be just another kick in the guts for people who need the most help, the addicts."

Tom Lloyd, a retired chief constable from Cambridge in England, said: "Put quite simply, if it's kept open, lives will be saved. If it's shut, people will be condemned to certain death."

But federal Health Minister Tony Clement, who has yet to make a decision on the site's future, fought back.

Before the news conference had ended, his office gave reporters contact information for Canadian police officers who oppose continuation of the site.

One of them was Superintendent Ron Taverner of the Toronto Police Service. He called Insite's operations a de facto legalization of street drugs.

Supt. Taverner said he would prefer to see funds directed to treatment programs because there is only so much government money to go around.

He is also concerned that crime around the site could increase, although studies have not supported that conclusion.

Mr. Clement has said he is keeping an open mind. When asked yesterday why his office would then provide rebuttals to arguments in favour of Insite, his spokeswoman said it is important that reporters have access to both sides of the debate.

"Illicit drugs take a terrible toll on human health," Laryssa Waler said in an e-mail, "which is why they were made illegal in the first place, and evidently, our Canadian police support keeping them illegal."

But some, such as the Vancouver Police Department, have endorsed the safe-injection site.

And Libby Davies, the New Democratic Party MP from Vancouver East, said it is inappropriate for Mr. Clement to provide counterarguments to the extension of the site's licence while saying he has yet to decide.

Ms. Davies accused the Health Minister of playing games with those who are working to keep the site open, and urged him to announce his decision immediately.

The police officers at the morning news conference, meanwhile, offered a passionate defence of the facility and strongly urged the elimination of laws prohibiting drugs such as heroin.

"We know that somewhere between 70 per cent and 90 per cent of all property crimes are committed by drug addicts to fund those addictions. We know that while drugs remain illegal, criminal gangs and organizations will continue to reap enormous amounts of money and they will defend their territories, killing anyone attempting to move in," said Tony Smith, a retired Vancouver police officer.

By handing over the drug distribution system to criminals, the government has ensured that the illegal substances are available to everyone, right down to primary-school children, he added.

Meanwhile, he said, addicts need help.

"Insite is the first and only Canadian site to realistically aid these individuals without condemning them.

"It's prevented hundreds of overdose deaths. It's provided medical assistance to those in need of it and it has assisted those who wish to get clean, to get drugs out of their lives."
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source: The Globe and Mail