CENTRE'S CLOSURE LEAVES HUGE GAP

Vancouver Island's only live-in treatment centre for addiction will be gone
by the end of July.

Bounced from one government ministry to another over the past 27 years
along with the rest of B.C.'s addiction services, the residential centre
run by the Victoria Life Enrichment Society has survived its share of
budget cuts and shifting political mandates.

But the last bounce turned out to be fatal. The province offloaded funding
of addiction services to the Vancouver Island Health Authority in April,
and the authority served 60-day notice on the VLES board soon after.

The health authority says day programs are more cost-efficient and just as
effective, and that nobody had the money for relocating the treatment
centre now that its lease has run out at the former Royal Oak Inn. And if
it's willing to reinvent itself, the society is welcome to apply for some
of $6 million in new mental-health funding that will no doubt include
addiction programs, adds health authority executive vice-president Marilyn
Rook.

VLES executive director Martin Spray agrees that the day programs run by
the Dallas Society and other Island non-profits are excellent, but that
doesn't negate the need for live-in treatment as well.

"Talk to practitioners in the field and they'll tell you: We need both,"
says Spray, one of seven staff at the centre. "All this really means is
that B.C. is now 28 beds short."

There are six residential treatment centres in B.C., all with slightly
different programs and styles. The Victoria centre, which has treated 9,000
people since its doors opened in 1975, charges a daily user fee of $40 and
puts clients through an intensive month of psychotherapy and counselling.

The centres were funded at the provincial level until April and their
caseloads reflected that: People needing treatment for drugs and alcohol
(Spray says almost all clients have problems with both) would be referred
into one or the other, based as much on what their needs were as where they
lived.

In any given year, half of the 300 clientele at the Victoria centre come
from somewhere other than Vancouver Island. Spray suspects that made it
easier for the local health authority to dump the $505,000 grant for the
program, as its mandate is to serve Island residents.

But with no centre on the Island, Spray questions whether residents seeking
treatment will truly find what they need in day programs, or will be forced
to line up for live-in services on the mainland. If that's so, it won't be
long before the health authorities funding those services will be
complaining about interloping Islanders.

The one thing that no one is arguing about is that the VLES program works.
Almost 60 per cent of former clients surveyed recently had not returned to
drugs or alcohol after three months -- a "major accomplishment," says
Spray. Even a very enthusiastic graduate of the local Full Circle day
program, sent my way by the health authority, praised the work of the
live-in centre and lamented its passing.

"For me, I had a lot of fears and wanted to sleep in my own bed every
night, so the day program was wonderful," said the woman.

"But I'm upset that they're cutting VLES. It's a scary thing to think about
funding being cut to any of the services. To me, there's got to be more,
not less."

Where the day-program theory really falls apart is when people being
treated have to return home every night to drug-using partners and friends,
says Roy Crowe, who heads the Association of Substance Abuse Programs of B.C.

"When that's the case, residential treatment is the only thing that will
wor k," he says. "Our association board members are extremely upset that
funding for this program has been cut. It just shows the lack of
comprehension on this issue in government."

The letter-writing campaign to protest VLES's demise is already underway.
Doctors, psychologists and drug-and-alcohol counsellors from around the
province have added their own angry comments to form letters being sent to
Premier Gordon Campbell.

The government can pay now or pay later, Crowe says. Without readily
available and effective treatment, and lots of it, taxpayers are ultimately
on the hook for the crime, job loss and family breakdown that result from
untreated addiction.

"If you don't treat people with addiction, no matter what they're addicted
to," says Crowe, "then you can expect all hell to break loose next."