Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services

Iqaluit (Nov 11/02) - Addiction treatment will come full circle in Nunavut next year when a detoxication and counselling centre opens its doors on home soil.

Planning for the centre was included as part of the Government of Nunavut's $2.2 million mental health strategy released last spring. It will offer residents a more culturally relevant and holistic approach to overcoming addiction.

The decision to open such a centre in Nunavut fills a five-year void created when Inuusiqsiurvik, the only territorial treatment facility, closed its doors in 1998. Located in Apex, five kilometres outside Iqaluit, the 18-bed facility closed to give addictions workers time to revamp programs to offer Inuit better treatment services.

However, a severe funding shortage intervened in 1999 and the Department of Health and Social Services was unable to cover the cost of re-opening the centre. Health officials learned it cost twice as much to treat residents in Nunavut so they chose to send residents in need of acute addictions treatment outside of the territory for detoxication.

Clients who did not require residential treatment received help in their home communities. According to Health Minister Ed Picco, that's when the government started training workers and building addictions treatment capacity in hamlets. That initiative will pick up more speed next year when Nunavut Arctic College begins to offer a diploma program in mental health and addictions services.

"In the past, we would take a person out of Pond Inlet and send them to Iqaluit and treat them for six weeks. Then we would send them back to Pond Inlet to all the same problems they had when they left. They would often relapse. That's the problem with these types of programs," explained Picco.

"We decided if people needed help, we would treat them in their own community with mental health workers helping them," he said.

Though Picco called the current method of treatment successful, he said the government decided this year to offer a combination of detoxification and counselling services within the territory.

The centre will offer clients four to six beds for acute treatment alongside additional space for addictions counselling. People's physical addiction to substances will be treated and the problems that originally sparked a reliance on drugs and alcohol will also be examined.

Treatment programs will vary for each client and where necessary, families will

also attend the centre for counselling.

Picco said the facility, operating on an estimated annual budget of $500,000 to $750,000, will incorporate Inuit culture into treatment.

The health minister would not confirm which community will host the promised facility, but Premier Paul Okalik has called for it to be located in a small, non-decentralized community.

What the words mean...

When you read about addictions, there are a lot of words and meanings that relate only to this problem. Here's a list of some of the terms you can expect to hear and read if you are ever involved in helping someone overcome an addiction. It was taken from A State of Emergency...Evaluation of Addiction Services in the NWT.

Addiction: Includes alcoholism and addiction to drugs and/or substances. In a few instances where the context dictates, addictions may refer to gambling and other process addictions.

AA/NA: Refers to Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous.

Addictions Specialist: Refers to Health and Social Service Authority positions in addictions.

Aftercare: An integrated, post-hospitalization, continuing program of outpatient treatment and rehabilitation services provided by a treatment facility or other facility. The program is directed to maintenance of improvement, prevention of relapse and adjustment to the community.

Blended Program: Refers to NWT Community Addiction Programs that are inclusive of an alcohol and drug program and a mental health and/or family violence program.

Client: Refers to people who undergo treatment for addiction; denotes a respect for the person seeking help.

Community Addiction Worker: Refers to the current positions held by staff in many Community Addiction Programs, as this is how they are called in most NWT communities.

Concurrent Disorders: Refers to a combination of mental/emotional/psychiatric problems experienced together with the abuse of substances such as alcohol and/or other drugs.

Counselling: A process of defining, understanding and addressing a specific problem as well as advice and suggestions given by a person acknowledged as being an expert in one or more areas, such as marriage, dependency on substances or vocations.

Detoxification or Detox: Refers to procedures designed for the reduction or elimination of toxic substances in the body. Commonly referred to as detox.

Flooding: Uncontrolled and uncontrollable emotional expression.

Recovery: Refers to people in treatment.

Substances: Includes alcohol, inhalants/solvents, illicit drugs, over-the-counter medications and nicotine.

Treatment: Includes residential treatment and also the providing of services to a person with a condition such as an addiction.