Nearly Half BC’s New “Substance-Use Treatment Beds” Provide No Treatment

    British Columbia recently unveiled 26 publicly funded “substance-use treatment beds” in four communities across the province. Six of the beds are reserved for people who have “completed treatment,” however, and another six will require people to travel off-site to receive any.

    In a January statement announcing the expansion of “bed-based services,” the BC Ministry of Health projects serving up to 250 people across four sites in Kelowna, Nanaimo, Prince Rupert and Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Three of the four facilities did not respond to Filter’s inquiries about specifics of the treatment being offered. The health ministry told Filter that it anticipated people will stay an average of six months, but did not provide further details.

    “Is it religious? Is it 12-step?” asked City of Vancouver drug policy consultant Karen Ward. “What’s the practitioner-to-client ratio, a basic question at the very benchmark across health systems? We have no idea.”

    According to Karis Support Society in Kelowna, the facility that did respond to Filter‘s inquiry, a program coordinator and a support worker have been hired to oversee the six treatment beds but there is no medical staff on site.

    “[T]he majority of our participants have either a family physician or go to the OAT Clinic or Urban Outreach,” a Karis Support Society spokesperson told Filter.

    Patients are expected to stay between six months and two years. All six beds are currently occupied; the waitlist is generally from 30-60 days. The facility primarily offers services like meals, laundry, daily programming and access to counselors and community supports.

    In the health ministry statement, the Karis Support Society beds are described as offering “tailored support for pregnant women and women with children to help reach their recovery goals.”

    All six beds at in Nanaimo are “for women who have completed treatment.”

    According to the health ministry statement, all six beds at Island Crisis Care Society in Nanaimo are “for women who have completed treatment to get longer-term support with their recovery.” Moms Stop the Harm member Correne Antrobus told Filter that the facility is not a substance-use treatment center.

    Antrobus, whose daughter uses drugs, described trying to gain access to government-funded detox and treatment beds as “a battle every step of the way.” 

    “I know it’s really difficult to navigate the system for even someone that’s housed,” she said. 

    Harbor Lights Addiction Treatment Program in Vancouver has a publicly funded 12-bed program for “female-identifying adults (19+) women only.” It serves people who have already initiated and are stable on methadone, Methadose, Kadian or Suboxone, provided their dose is under a given threshold.

    “People are expected to be abstinent from non-prescription substances for a minimum of 72 hours before intake,” the program states on its website. “People on a prescribed opiate replacement therapy are welcome in this program. During your intake, you’ll be asked when you last used, and asked to provide a urinalysis and breathalyser sample.”

    Both BC’s New Democratic Party and its Conservative Party have ramped up support for involuntary treatment.

    Since 2017, the year after BC declared the overdose crisis a public health emergency, the health ministry province reports opening 659 publicly funded treatment beds, for a total of 3,645. However, the Investigative Journalism Foundation found that more than one-third of the beds included in this number are simply lower-barrier shelter beds, which don’t necessarily turn away people who use drugs but do not provide any treatment services.

    The alternatives are for-profit facilities like Surrey-Langley’s John Volken Academy, where patients have reportedly been forced to work up to 56 hours a week and banned from talking to patients of the opposite sex. One patient was allegedly gored by a water buffalo while working on a farm run by the company.

    “I know lots of folks who … think, ‘I’ll stop on my own, I’ll just bare-knuckle it because I don’t want to go to [any] of those places,’” Ward said. 

    Meanwhile, both BC’s New Democratic Party and its Conservative Party have ramped up support for involuntary treatment. The first beds in those new spaces are slated to open inside correctional facilities.

    Between January and October 2024 BC recorded 1,925 overdose deaths, a decrease from the 2,107 deaths recorded for the same time period in 2023.

    “What that [health ministry statement] told to me at least was, ‘We’re sticking with our messaging and framing … harm reduction keeps you alive until you can get a space into treatment,’” Ward said. “Which I just think is fucking appalling and so cynical because, good luck getting in.”

     


     

    Image via Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons 4.0

    • Brishti reports on health care, drug policy, mental health, policing, race, sexual violence and the intersections between them. She was a finalist for several prestigious national and provincial awards for her work as a Capital Daily staff reporter. Her freelance reporting has been published in publications such as VICE, the Tyee, the Narwhal, National Geographic and BBC Future. She’s based in Victoria, Canada.

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