DETOX BEDS DOUBLED IN VICTORIA

It's a good step, but it likely won't eliminate wait
lists.

So said Gordon Harper, executive director of the Victoria-based
Umbrella Society for Addictions and Mental Health, after a new 21-bed
community medical detox unit was unveiled at the Eric Martin Pavilion.

Standing in the pale green common room at the new ward Friday, Harper
said the unit is an improvement over the seven detox beds previously
available.

But the need for such a facility in Victoria is great and the current
wait list long, he said.

On Monday the new facility was due to start accepting patients age 19
and over who are dealing with addictions to alcohol, prescription
drugs or opiates, such as heroin.

While that criteria addresses a number of people in the community, the
reality is not everyone who might benefit from detox is accepted.

The new facility, like other detox units in town, is unlikely to take
stimulant users such as crack addicts, because there are generally not
medical complications involved in withdrawing from such drugs, Harper
noted.

The hope, he said, is that the Vancouver Island Health Authority will
continue to work on closing such gaps.

On top of the detox criteria, Harper said there is still a month-long
wait list for counselling for patients discharged from the detox centre.

During the official part of the opening, Harper put the situation in a
positive light.

"Imagine what we could do if we could only work together like this all
the time," he told Vancouver Island Health Authority and Victoria
Hospital Foundation members and provincial politicians.

The additional beds more than double Greater Victoria's previous
capacity, bumping the bed count to 38, Health Services Minister George
Abbott said.

That includes 17 long-term (28 days) stabilization beds for people
prior to their entering initial detox.

The centre is not a cure, but an important stage to addiction
recovery, the facility's director Laurence Bosley said. "With medical
detox the hope is to provide a beginning," he said.