CUTTING OFF AID TO ADDICTS A FALSE ECONOMY

AS A COUNSELLOR IN private practice and as a founding board member of the
Regional Addictions Advocacy Society I am greatly disturbed by the decision
of the Vancouver Island Health Authority to withdraw the funding for the
residential treatment program provided by the Victoria Life Enrichment
Society (VLES).

The overwhelming support for VLES from addiction professionals, medical
doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, Employment Assistance Program
Services and from graduates of the program speaks to its past success and
effectiveness.

Over the past 27 years VLES has been the model for other centres in the
country, could possibly be closed. It has led our province in developing a
highly professional approach to helping those who suffer from addictions
and their families.

In addition to being the first residential treatment centre staffed by
professionally trained counsellors, VLES was also the first to offer
intensive residential couples counselling. They were first to offer a
hands-on counsellor training program.

They were first to promote and practise the idea that people with different
lifestyle problems could be helped successfully within the same setting.

They were the first to develop and teach an addictions course at the
University of Victoria and the first to make evaluation research part of
its mandate.

Each month its program is examined and adjusted to continually provide the
very best treatment and education for their clients.

I also question the beliefs and figures that Marilyn Rook, the health
authority's executive vice-president, presented in her June 27 letter
entitled "Day treatment a best practice."

I have worked as a counsellor in this city in an outpatient clinic, a day
program and at VLES, and I know that all three services are vital to our
region. I am also keenly aware of the very different services provided by
each component of the system of care. Each component is necessary for
certain clients at certain stages of their recovery.

Comparing day treatment and residential treatment is impossible. The day
treatment programs I am familiar with cost far more than the figure of $45
that Rook presents. Which other program in our region operates on $45 a day
per client? How many hours are in that day, how many qualified counsellors
are involved and how successful are their followup studies?

In fact, I believe that if all things are considered, the $75 a day per
client that it costs government to send someone to VLES is actually less
than what it costs per client per day in some of the day programs. And it
is far less costly than paying later through hospital care, criminal
justice and family support, which is what many individuals will require
without adequate treatment.

At VLES the clients are totally immersed for 24 hours a day in their
treatment while most of the day programs are four hours a day or less.

Intensive residential treatment is essential for some people. As people do
trauma-healing work (and most professionals agree that's what most
addiction recovery work is), the whole central nervous system needs time to
reintegrate.

There is a vulnerable and sacred time period after deep therapy work. How
can a person in this state, who has just worked through a trauma (for
example childhood abuse), go home and make dinner for their children or
deal with a spouse who has no understanding of the state they are in? Or
worse, how can they return to a spouse who may still be addicted?

Many individuals recovering from trauma simply cannot deal with their
regular lives at this time and in a day program most people do one of two
things.

They either hold back during therapy because some part of them knows they
can't allow themselves to be completely vulnerable, or they participate
fully in the treatment, but without support in the evening they are unable
to function normally, putting their children and sometimes other people at
risk.

It is definitely not "best practices" to eliminate residential treatment
for those people who need it.

If the Vancouver Island Health Authority cannot find it in their budget to
support this centre then I would suggest that they transfer it to the
Provincial Health Authority and fund VLES as a provincial resource, which
it has been for 27 years.

As a trauma and addictions counsellor I need this facility to refer some of
my clients to.

Eliminating funding for an effective, cost-efficient, results-oriented
program with staff that are the very best in their field, a program that is
respected by health-care professionals around the province and nationally,
is an extremely poor choice because it deprives those in need of service
and puts our communities at increased risk.