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Final day for Nats'ejee K'eh Government has no plans for facility, unsure if new treatment styles will work
Daniel Campbell
Northern News Services
Published Monday, September 30, 2013
K'ATLODEECHE/HAY RIVER RESERVE
The last addictions treatment facility in the Northwest Territories is shutting down today.
The Department of Health and Social Services pulled its funding for the Nats'ejee K'eh Treatment Centre, after close to 20 years of operation. The government said it's looking for new uses for the Hay River facility, but has nothing in the works.
Kristine Vannebo-Suwala, former executive director of the facility, said they've been operating with a skeleton staff and have had no patients for the last month. She didn't have much to say on the closure.
But the closure of the facility has politicians talking. Daryl Dolynny, MLA for Range Lake, said he plans to raise the issue when the legislative assembly sits again in October.
"There's a lot of frustration out there with the issues of addictions and what kind of facilities we'll be providing," he said.
Tom Beaulieu, minister for the Department of Health and Social Services, said the government will be moving toward on-the-land and mobile addictions treatment. The department's main motivation for the move, he says, is doing what "the people" want.
"I heard consistently from the small aboriginal communities that they wanted treatment on the land. They said residential treatment was not effective," Beaulieu said.
When asked whether community-based treatment or mobile treatment would actually be better for patients with addictions, Beaulieu didn't have an answer.
"I don't know, we've never tried it before," he said. "We thought we'd go into this full force and see if it does work."
Dolynny, who is also a health-care professional, said on-the-land and mobile programs are part of the addictions treatment process, but residential treatment should be "at the top of the pyramid."
"It's very, very clear that we do not have the proper clinical intervention to deal with drug and alcohol addictions," he said.
"We're removing the most important part of the pyramid."
The Nats'ejee K'eh Treatment Centre ran eight or nine treatment programs per year, each with more than a dozen patients, or 120-130 people per year. The cost to run the programs was $2.2 million, according to Beaulieu.
Beaulieu said residential treatment will still be an option for those suffering addictions - they'll just need to be shipped down south, to Alberta or B. C.
The government has made agreements with four treatment centres in the south: three in Alberta and one in B.C.. Beaulieu wasn't able to say whether the southern contracts cost more than keeping patients in the North.
"Are we seeing any savings by farming this out?" Dolynny asked. "I'm hoping the minister will come clean with that information."
The Nats'ejee K'eh Treatment Centre now belongs to the Department of Public Works, though it sits on K'atlodeeche First Nation land. Around 12 health care workers have lost their jobs as a result of the closure.
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