By Andrew Macdonald
Premier Tim Houston is a friend of mental health and addiction files.
Firstly, in 2021, he named the province’s first ever Addictions and Mental Health Minister, and this week he said the government would begin this spring to see to it that visits to therapists such as psychologists and social workers would be covered under MSI, as we report elsewhere in this deep dive on mental health in this edition of The Macdonald Notebook.
Until Houston’s bold and transformational policies on mental health and addictions, governments over the last 20 years have not been kind to addictions services, with faceless bureaucrats making policy decisions and gutting the department.
One year a McNeil cabinet minister confirmed it is bureaucrats that run the province, not politicians.
Nova Scotia has the third largest drinking population in Canada — a known fact — but Addictions Services has been under attack since the 1999 election of the Tory government of Dr. John Hamm.
That year, powerful Health Minister Angus ‘Tando’ MacIsaac actually took a government grant away from a 30-day rehab centre in tiny Monastery in northeastern Nova Scotia.
Called Recovery House, the centre was founded in 1970 and over three decades rescued thousands of addicts seeking solace from booze, prescription drug abuse, and street drugs.It closed its doors in 1999, despite having operated a Cadillac recovery program.
The Hamm government also killed off a 30-day rehab at Valley Regional Hospital in Kentville.
Back in 2006, Valley MP Scott Brison, nephew of a recovering alcoholic, teamed up with businessmen John Risley and Mickey MacDonald and Michelin Tire to re-open the Valley rehab as the not-for-profit Crosbie House. It still operates as a rehab, drawing addicts from across the region.
In recent years, the former Capital District Health Authority turned its week long detox at the Nova Scotia Hospital in Dartmouth into a co-ed facility, and some of its patients naturally were involved in romantic behaviour as a result. During my 2012 stay at Dartmouth, a young millennial male and an attractive 20-something female, were caught underneath the detox beds, and then booted out of the treatment facility.
Many recovering alcoholics will tell you that the best operated detox program was based in Fisherman’s Memorial Hospital in Lunenburg, but in recent years the McNeil government turned that program into a day detox where the addict is then sent home at night — a dangerous proposition for an addict in need of a five- to seven-day around the clock therapy and treatment.
The McNeil government also killed the Affected Others Group, which had trained government therapists overseeing a robustly attended support group for family members afflicted with an active user in its midst.
Government also cancelled the important Out Alive group, despite the fact there is a heavy booze and drug abuse by the city’s gay and lesbian community.
The McNeil government was mean to addictions and mental health files. Under Health Minister Randy Delorey, it closed down an addictions centre which has operated in downtown Halifax for at least 30 years, including the last quarter of a century at George Ramia-owned Bedford Row.
After I reported when that office closed in 2018, addiction followers on social media lighted up Twitter and Facebook across Canada. My article was posted by two social worker entities in Ontario and even as far as British Columbia.
That year former nurse and now MLA, Elizabeth Smith-Mccrossin raised the closure and loss of government-sanctioned addictions support groups in the Legislature. Health Minister Delorey did not provide detailed answers on the Bedford Row closure, instead offering a typical political comment to avoid the questions at hand.
There are 20,000 office workers in downtown Halifax, and for those among them who are afflicted with addictions, being able to access government therapists at Bedford Row was a major convenience.
Now, addicts who seek recovery from often lethal drinking and drug addictions have to drive — and many addicts can’t afford a car or have lost their license when high — and travel 25 minutes to addiction centres as far away as Bayers Lake, Spryfield or Dartmouth, where downtown office addicts are now being referred.
Downtown Halifax streets like Barrington Street and Spring Garden Road are populated with homeless addicts who panhandle, and many can’t pay even afford a toonie for bus fare to get to farther afield addiction centres.
Bedford Row also used to house a mental illness unit — and those homeless folk often would need a certificate from the centre to get a pass into downtown shelters, a convenience which has been robbed from them.
Being able to go to the Addictions office at Bedford Row was the homeless person’s only real option if they wanted recovery and therapy.
Here is the Hansard question Smith McCrossin asked of Health Minister Delorey. You be the judge on whether he actually answered her query:
MS. ELIZABETH SMITH-McCROSSIN: Mr. Speaker, we’re very concerned about the lack of access to mental health services and addiction services across this province. In particular, in January, the Nova Scotia Health Authority made a decision to close the addictions office on Bedford Row, located in downtown Halifax. This closure has reduced access to services for those needing help with their addictions. This office has been in downtown Halifax for 25 years.
I’d like to ask the Minister of Health and Wellness, why was this addictions office moved and relocated out of downtown Halifax?
HON. RANDY DELOREY: Indeed, as a government, with our partners like the Nova Scotia Health Authority and other community-based partners, we are investing and supporting both mental health and addictions services. In fact, I’ll refer the member to the work that’s ongoing with our investments in opioid treatments, Mr. Speaker, methadone treatments, our naloxone kits, in partnership with the Pharmacy Association of Nova Scotia, to help individuals to avoid the negative impacts of a drug overdose on opioids.
MS. SMITH-McCROSSIN: Mr. Speaker, we’re very concerned that decisions are not always made in the best interests of patients and those needing access to services. For example, a decision was made to stop funding a therapist providing a program called Affected Others. This program helped the therapist work with those affected by alcoholism and drug abuse, specifically the spouses and children. The money has been taken away for that program.
I would like to ask the Minister of Health and Wellness the question, will the minister commit to restoring the funding for the program called Affected Others, and also the Addiction Services in downtown Halifax?
MR. DELOREY: It’s important to note that the services that were offered at the site located in downtown Halifax that the member referenced are still being offered within the Halifax area, Mr. Speaker. So, that work and those services are still being offered by the Nova Scotia Health Authority, the employees that were working there. It’s really just a matter of a change in location in that regard.
With respect to other specific programs and services being offered, we have a wide variety of programs and services being provided for people with mental health and addictions services. I would advise the member of one particular program that’s, again, rolled out in communities across the province, in partnership with the Pharmacy Association of Nova Scotia, and other health care providers, that’s the Bloom Program, Mr. Speaker.
We have a wide variety of programs and services to help people with mental health and addiction needs.
