Intoxicants slept off at the brief detox centre

Tyler Clarke

Daily Herald

Although the City of Prince Albert saw its overall crime rate drop 11.3 per cent in 2011, extreme alcohol use is one area that didn't see improvement.

Instances of police called out to deal with intoxicated persons went up 5.6 per cent over the previous year in 2011, representing 2,808 intoxicated individuals arrested for the simple act of being intoxicated.

"Alcohol usage - or more appropriately extreme alcohol usage - remains a significant concern," Prince Albert Police Service chief Dale McFee said during a Monday press conference. "This is something our community seriously needs to look at... These people aren't criminals. They're people that have been marginalized due to addictions issues, and we need to get to the core of that."

The Ministry of Health-operated Brief and Social Detox Centre, connected to the north end of the Victoria Hospital, is a facility mandated with tackling this issue.

The brief detox area of the facility received 2,582 patient intakes in 2011 alone - 2,582 intoxicated individuals sleeping off their drunks in the facility's eight beds.

Of these patients, police admitted 22 per cent. Emergency room referrals represent another 20 per cent of total patients, while the remaining patients walked into the facility on their own accord, or with assistance from others.

Once admitted, patients take part in a brief intake and examination process. They're then showered and cleaned-up, if necessary, and led to a bed to sleep off their drunk.

"The staff has done really well in taking care of intoxicated individuals," the centre's manager Andre Letendre said.

"We get more and more (patients) as we've gone on," he said of the program that has been around since late 2009. "There's definitely indications that as we progress in the development of our program and become better known in the community... It's all contributed to us using our beds more effectively."

Although the hope is always for people to turn their lives around, that isn't always possible, Letendre said. In some cases, simply giving people a safe place to spend the night is sufficient.

"We have some chronic alcoholics that may very well end their last day on earth intoxicated and never recover," he said. "Every place has them - every community has them. [Being in the detox centre is] better than them freezing outside."

In the mornings, one of 11 counselors on staff - one senior, four full-time, two part-time, four casuals - join the LPNs on staff in letting patients know about addictions treatment options. One option is admission to the facility's other half - the social detox area.

The social detox area consists of a longer-term program with greater counselor involvement, though unlike a rehab facility is strictly used to healthily wean people off of whatever drug they're addicted to. Upon discharge, further treatment is encouraged at other facilities in the Prince Albert area.

"Our community really needs to learn more so they're more supportive of this kind of initiative," Letendre said. "It never ceases to amaze me that it's 2012 and people still don't understand what addictions are. Addiction isn't a choice. It's not about willpower. It's no different - cancer or diabetes is not a choice, or heart disease. Although, with all of those, we have made choices that have led to those."

This is why it's nice to see McFee's holistic approach with regard to crime prevention, he said.

"I think what our city needs is more of what chief McFee has been working on with his community strategy, and that is... it should be more collective," Letendre said. "We're working in too many fragmentations. They're all good services - all good programs, but it's really hard."

So far, the Brief and Social Detox Centre has seen some success stories, though with chronic alcoholics one must adjust their definition of what success is.

"You have to look at it through the lens of harm reduction - reduce the harm to self, and reducing the harm to the community," Letendre said.

Things are only expected to improve, Letendre said. Like small businesses not seeing profits until their fifth year, the two-year-old Brief and Social Detox Centre will see greater success stories in the coming years.

"We are doing better and better service as we go along," he said. "It doesn't happen overnight. It takes time to learn all the little quarks."