MLA OUTRAGED OVER PLAN TO CLOSE ADDICTION CENTRE

A plan by Northern Health to end the Atlas Youth Addiction treatment
facility in Terrace has drawn the ire of local health advocates and
North Coast MLA Gary Coons.

Atlas has served youth in the northwest region as the only youth
addiction centre with six beds and is scheduled to close on December
31. Terrace Services Society has been operating it, but the contract
was cancelled thee weeks ago.

The move was made to save $650,000, but Coons wondered what the
long-term costs would be to not having a service close to home.

"They have cut the number of youth treatment beds in half in the
north," said Coons. "There were seven in Prince George and this had six."

In the last five years, 475 young addicts have used the service and
for some time it was not only limited to youth in the Northwest, but
was made available to the entire province.

NH was ordered by the provincial Health Ministry to cut $14 million
from its budget for next year. In response, the authority is cutting
$1 million to its mental health budget, and the cutting of this
facility will clear more than half of that budget decrease in one swoop.

"Any of these kids wanting or needing help, have to go to Prince
George now," said Coons. "We won't even have it in our region. If
your son and daughters are having difficulty they now have to go to
Prince George. And we see what happens when we put people on the bus
- - they don't get there."

People looking for treatment in Prince Rupert are often asked to ride
with the Northern Health bus service or take a Greyhound for the
eight-hour drive to Prince George. Advocates have long argued that
the distance between both communities is too long to help those who
need help immediately.

One of those advocates is Tony Briglio, who once sat on the Local
Health Advisory Council until it was disbanded by City Council
earlier this year. Briglio said that the cancellation of this service
makes him wonder if the provincial ministry or NH were committed at
all to dealing with substance abuse problems in the province.

"The closing of this facility is a demonstration that they do not
view addictions as a priority, but it is a priority number one for
us," said Briglio.

The communities of Lax Kwa'laams, Hartley Bay, Kitkatla, Metlakatla,
Port Edward and Prince Rupert have all highlighted addiction services
and treatment as their highest priority in their
community-to-community deliberations.

According to a Health Canada report in 2005, the mean age for first
time alcohol use is 10 years old, binge drinking 12-years old and
most drugs 13-years old.

Briglio had been working on the community-to-community forum with
First Nations partners in developing some sort of game plan for an
addiction treatment facility for the North Coast until Briglio was
defeated in last November's municipal elections.

Consultation with NH representatives with Northern communities has
consistently pointed to the need to have mental health and addictions
services closer to home, which was echoed in a press release by NH.

In that release, NH CEO Cathy Ulrich said that the authority has been
told this and added that the Nechako Treatment Centre in Prince
George would offer that close to home program.

"We get a lot of rhetoric, we get the "make-do" stuff in that we'll
just make-do, but it's not enough,' chastised Briglio. "If we thought
that Terrace was too far away, then where do we go now? If the beds
are too full in Prince George do they go to Vancouver?"

Northern Health isn't the only health authority making cuts in mental
health services to save money.

The Vancouver Island Health Authority announced last week that it is
reducing the number of caseworkers and hospital beds for the mentally
ill, among other cuts designed to trim $45 million from this year's budget.

That decision caused Victoria Police chief Jamie Graham to warn his
officers that they will see more people in crisis on Victoria streets
and they will be asked to do more as other agencies are cut back.