Nunavut changes focus
Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services
Iqaluit (Nov 13/00) - Nunavut has re-organized the way it treats addiction.
Instead of sending people to counselling programs that take them away from home and return them to the same problems and the same temptations, programs are being developed to reach people addicted to alcohol and drugs in their home communities.
Addiction Facts: 1999-2000 42 people sent outside of Nunavut for residential addictions treatment: 8 from Baffin, 20 from Kivalliq, 14 from Kitikmeot. Cost $165,000. 2000-2001 (year-to-date) 13 people sent outside Nunavut for residential addictions treatment: 10 from Kivalliq, 3 from Kitikmeot. - average stay for clients is 33 days. - women travel to Calgary's Adzenta centre. - men travel to Hay River's Natseje'ke centre. - primary type of addiction in Nunavut is alcohol, binge-drinking. - cocaine and heroine addiction are beginning to surface. Source: Dept. of Health |
Health Minister Ed Picco (left) said when it became apparent a few years ago that optimum use wasn't being made of Nunavut's territorial treatment centre, the facility was shut down. In that much of the substance abuse is alcohol-related and takes the form of binge-style drinking rather than psychological addiction, Picco said the treatment was not relevant for the people involved.
While attempts were originally made to develop a better method of treatment, officials came to realize it was more cost-effective to send people requiring residential treatment to centres outside of the territory. Addictions workers also began to place more value on the results they were seeing from treatment delivered at the wellness centres in their communities.
"Does it help a person to take them out of their community and then send them back? What we would like to do is treat people at the home level with their families," said Picco.
Reaching Inuit
While numbers were not available on how many people were receiving out-patient treatment in their own hamlets, statistics showed during the last fiscal year that 42 residents were sent to Hay River's Natseje'ke centre or to Calgary's Adzenta centre for residential treatment at an estimated cost of $165,000 to the government. That dollar figure rings in at about half of what it would have cost to treat people at a local treatment centre.
Picco said his department is still considering the benefits of having a detox facility operating on Nunavut soil, but more attention is being paid to beefing up the services offered in the communities.
The new style of treatment seems to make better sense. Not only are Nunavummiut counselled in their own language by people providing support and programs based on the principles of Inuit culture, but their families are involved in their treatment. Given the strong sense of family that exists in Nunavut, this is critical.
"It's important to us for people to know that just because we don't have something as solid or as dramatic as a building that work isn't being done," said Allison Brewer, a spokesperson for the department of health.
"A lot of work is being done. We're looking at where it's best spent," she said.
At the community level
Brewer said in recent years the department had come to realize that a good way of spending their money was to push it into the communities to build up resources and the number of staff trained to do addictions work.
She said this was crucial given the front-line role of the employees at the wellness centres.
"Community wellness centres are usually the first point of contact.
"People are either treated there or referred to a place for residential care," said Brewer.
She also said her department had formed a number of partnerships in an effort to stretch the available dollars.
"One of the things the department recognizes is the problem is too large and their resources are too limited to do it all on their own. They've formed partnerships with other organizations," she said, giving the example of the National Native Alcohol and Drug Abuse Program, which filtered $320,000 out to the communities for training drug and alcohol workers last fiscal year.
Much emphasis has also been placed on tobacco addiction recently and groups like Pauktuutit, the national Inuit women's organization, have done considerable work on raising awareness of the issue.
