Inuvik (Apr 23/04) - Recent changes to the health ministry's mandate to deliver social services may result in the closure of Turning Point, currently Inuvik's only emergency shelter.

"I don't think we're going to make it," said executive director of Turning Point Tanya Dillon. "It was just perfect how it worked before but now we don't have a drug and alcohol counsellor."

The person formerly in that position at Turning Point has since taken a job as community wellness worker for the Inuvik Regional Health and Social Services Authority, and works out of the regional hospital. Under the health ministry's new guidelines, alcohol and drug counselling will be combined with mental health counselling.

"There's people not willing to go into a cubicle at the hospital," said Dillon. "Here there was a friendly atmosphere and people felt comfortable coming because they still had some sense of anonymity."

With its addictions counsellor gone -- along with much of the accompanying health and social services funding -- Turning Point is in "dire need," says Dillon.

Operating on a two-month contract with Education, Culture and Employment, the centre has enough funds to keep six of its 12 beds running until the end of May.

"These people who come up here just don't have a clue," said Turning Point's chairperson Derek Lindsay of the health ministry's retooling of addictions services, which led to the recent changes.

"They've never worked on the front lines, don't have any idea what it's like to have an addiction problem. They make a decision like this and it just gets rubber stamped in Yellowknife."

Constant battle

According to Lindsay, the past eight years has been a constant battle to stay afloat, "going all the way back to when former Health Minister Kelvin Ng shut us down."

Then, the Turning Point was known as the Delta House and offered a 28-day rehabilitation program for recovering addicts. Now, potential candidates for the territories' drug and alcohol rehab must travel to Hay River to undergo a similar program.

Down the road from the Turning Point, at the Inuvik Regional Hospital, director of social programs Deborah Tynes is confident with the new approach and says the community wellness worker location is only temporary.

"The position won't be based permanently here, but moved to a more central location," says Tynes. "Our program is for alcohol and drug addiction and mental health and Turning Point is for homelessness."

Health Minister Michael Miltenberger, who is also the minister responsible for homelessness, says the new strategy to combine drug and alcohol counselling with mental health is experiencing "growing pains".

"There's going to be some rough patches and we don't want to lose our already limited capacity to deal with homelessness," he said. "If in the final analysis that is what is happening, then we'll have to do something to address it."