ADDICTIONS GROUP WANTS DETOX CENTRE

Coquitlam council will decide in two weeks whether to lobby the Simon
Fraser Health Region to obtain funding for a hospital-based drug
treatment program - or a freestanding hospital - to provide detox
services to addicts.

Coun. Louella Hollington made the notice of motion at Monday's
meeting, in response to a request from Rock Chalifour, a Port
Coquitlam resident and nurse at Royal Columbian Hospital.

Chalifour, representing the group Addictions Treatment Advocacy, told
council that 13 per cent of males and eight per cent of females in
the region meet the criteria for chemical dependency.

He called for the city to join in public support of a hospital or
hospital-based program to provide "detox on demand," to ask the SFHR
to include such a facility in its plans and to ask the directors of
the SFHR to actively seek funding options to build such a facility in
the region.

Chalifour said most relapses occur between detox and recovery, and
recovery programs often have long wait-lists.

Addiction, he said, affects people in all socio-economic categories
and the benefit of a hospital or hospital-based program providing
detox services would be its ability to discharge patients directly
into recovery programs.

Coun. Diane Thorne said the Lower Mainland drug strategy committee,
of which she is a member, is currently working on its own drug
strategy for the Lower Mainland, and invited Chalifour to attend a
meeting later this month.

According to the SFHR, there are an estimated 2,000 injection drug
users in the region. Ten-year trend data indicate that injection drug
use deaths in B.C. increased to 411 in 1998 from 67 in 1989.

The SFHR averaged 35 overdose deaths per year between 1994 and 1998.