Addiction services: the election promise we need

Opinion

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This article was published 22/09/2023 (715 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“I WANT detox,” he said.

He tearfully listed what he’d lost. Relationships.

I pulled out a cellphone and called the men’s detox facility at my agency. I put the worker who answered on speaker, and they explained that a couple of their 21 beds were open but were reserved for hospital admissions. If the man asking went to an emergency room first he could get a bed for a 14-day supervised detox today.

As soon as he heard the emergency room advice he started repeating “no.” He changed from calm to agitated — his agitation and despair ramped up.

No. No, he cried. He did not want to wait. He is always asked to wait, for many hours, and he can’t do it, not again.

Waving me off, he left the bus shelter and started crossing the road. I went after him, apologetic for the system but also trying to sell him with a ride to hospital now and then a second ride, however many hours later, to a detox bed.

He turned in the middle of the road, and pointed at me. “You gave me hope, and then you took it away,” he yelled, attracting curious looks from all four street corners. Glaring at me, he closed and clenched a hand in front of his face, as if clenching life out of the hope I took away.

I have been part of a mobile outreach team visiting unsheltered Winnipeggers since last December. We offer essentials — water, sandwiches, harm reduction, clothes, blankets — and we talk, often about how they want to move forward in life.

When we talk about detox I hear a lot of disappointment and cynicism. A lack of hope.

The fact that this city, this province, does not provide our community members and relatives with 24-7 one-stop-shop addiction services should be a top election issue. It should be talked about by everyone.

Addiction adds to homelessness, emergency and health service usage, crime, drug poisonings/the loss of precious loved ones and general destruction.

And yet, when people ask for help, we impose daunting tests of patience and hoop-jumping and persistence.

As an outreach team, we should be able to say, “yes, get in the van and we’ll take you there right now,” when those moments happen. And, also, “good for you, you got this, and we’re beside you.”

It’s a badge of shame that we can’t, or that anyone can’t walk up and enter a door and be given all the help they need to stop using and start rebuilding, anytime.

The request for help is a medical event that should be treated like a life-or-death emergency.

Instead, we ask people to sit and wait for hours as they get physically sick beyond what they can bear, or we say go get a 72-hour medical clearance and show up in the morning for a first-come-first-served bed at places with not enough beds to answer demand. And if they can’t get a bed after three days, they have to start over and get a new medical clearance.

In spite of the hoops, many are trying, but often there’s no room. I’m told that for every one person treated at the men’s detox at my agency, two are added to a growing wait list. The list now exceeds 100 people.

And Manitoba RAAM (rapid access to addiction medicine) clinics, although they are a one-stop-shop service, are open just three hours a day, Monday to Friday, and many who show up are turned away. Free Press reporter Malak Abas wrote about the insufficiencies of RAAM clinics in her story “Dying to get clean” in 2021, and not much has changed.

It’s election time in Manitoba. All parties should agree on, and prioritize, action on this. All voters should, too. No person in this province — or Canada, for that matter — who wants recovery should be made to wait or be turned away.

Increase hours, locations, beds, doctors and staff. Let everyone know they have a place they can go when they want help — no waiting.

Otherwise, we are profoundly failing each other.

Sean Ledwich is a mobile outreach worker, communications professional and former/future journalist.