In June the Associate Minister for Addictions and Mental Health, Jason Luan, meets with various groups in Medicine Hat to listen to feedback regarding the best way to address the needs of people with addictions. At Madhatter Coffee Roastery, owners (left) Josh Borrows and Katrina Marshall hand over a petition. Next to Marshall is Drew Barnes, MLA for Cypress-Medicine Hat, Minister Luan and Michaela Glagso MLA for Brooks-Medicine Hat.--FILE PHOTO
gslade@medicinehatnews.com@MHNGillianSlade
An additional $8 million to help those recovering from opioid addiction was announced by the government, but none of it will be for Medicine Hat.
The money will be released over the next four years, $2 million each year, for 10 clinics specializing in providing opioid agonist therapy operated by Alberta Health Services, and these are mainly in the “central hub” of the province.
“When you get larger hubs like we have here in Calgary we offer support through Telehealth to ODP (opioid dependency clinics) throughout the province,” said Dr. Robert Tanguay, medical lead for addiction education AHS. “Obviously the goal would be to see a publicly funded AHS program open up in Medicine Hat in order for us to help support that.”
The Associate Minister of mental health and addictions, Jason Luan, said this funding announcement is simply one of many steps the government is taking.
In June Luan met with about 60 people in Medicine Hat to hear their views about the proposed supervised consumption site and how best to address the needs of people locally with an addiction.
Local MLAs say the $8 million funding announcement that provided nothing for Medicine Hat will leave constituents and those who met with Luan in June disappointed.
“Although this is the right kind of plan, it’s a small start, it’s not focused throughout Alberta and I think they’ll be disappointed,” said Drew Barnes, MLA Cypress-Medicine Hat. “I would just ask Associate Minister Luan in the next budget coming up March 31 … to make sure that all initiatives are throughout the province.”
Barnes says Calgary and Edmonton also got most of the infrastructure funding announced in the last budget.
Brooks-Medicine Hat MLA Michaela Glasgo feels this “rural” area needs to be addressed along with the metro centres.
“I think it’s notable that Medicine Hat has some major issues when it comes to drug addiction and people who need help,” said Glasgo, committing to provide feedback to Luan and Minister of Health Tyler Shandro.
Glasgo acknowledged that those who met with Luan in June expected some concrete help by now.
“More advocacy needs to be done and I will be working with my counter-part, Drew Barnes, to make sure that happens,” said Glasgo.
Luan revealed in June that he had a budget of $140 million and that $40 million of that would be for detoxification and treatment programs.
On Friday Tanguay said that “high-output methadone clinics simply aren’t working and what we really need to be doing is helping people with full wrap-around support.”
“Our government said we would provide more treatment options to more Albertans who need them and that is what we are doing,” said Luan. “We are investing in the entire range of addiction treatment and recovery services to provide more Albertans the opportunity to get on the path to health, wellness and long-term recovery.”
Luan appointed a supervised consumption site review committee that visited six communities to hear directly from t he public. They were in Medicine Hat on Sept. 3. A report from the panel is due by the end of this month. At a press conference on Friday with Luan, he declined to speculate about the anticipated report.
Barnes says he does not know whether the report will be on time nor whether it will be made public.
