New operator takes over controversial Chinatown addiction clinic

CBC

4 hours ago

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Northwood Recovery was supposed to close on Monday, ending three months of fraught relations with neighbours in Chinatown.
But the doors of the addiction treatment clinic on Somerset Street W. reopened Monday morning — under new management and a new name. Somerset Coun. Ariel Troster is outraged.
"This is a huge betrayal of trust to the community," she said. "It's a huge betrayal of trust to my office and to the people who tried to work with the clinic to see if we can mitigate the problems nearby."
Catherine Boucher, president of the Dalhousie Community Association, feels that same sense of betrayal.
The councillor was lied to, the city was lied to, the community was lied to. - Catherine Boucher, Dalhousie Community Association
"We were lied to," she said. "The councillor was lied to, the city was lied to, the community was lied to."
Northwood Recovery offered safer supply, a controversial addiction treatment approach that prescribes opioids to help drug users get off street drugs like fentanyl. Troster supports safer supply, but not the way it was happening at Northwood — with a remote doctor and, in her view, inadequate supports.
Neighbours blamed the clinic for an upsurge in open drug use and social disorder in the area, saying patients diverted their prescription drugs to the black market and attracted dealers to the community.
Last month, management told Troster that Northwood was leaving Ottawa, and the physician who owned the clinic confirmed to her he was closing his practice in the city.
But now the site is operating as a satellite office of New Dawn Medical, which has more than 20 addictions clinics across the province.
New Dawn's medical director, Dr. David D'Souza, said it felt a duty to ensure Northwood's patients weren't left without care.
"Our focus is on ensuring that patients get great access to care, the best possible care, and when we heard that these patients might be potentially orphaned, we said no, we have the obligation to step in," he said.
D'Souza said it's too early to say whether the Somerset Street W. location will operate primarily as a safer supply clinic.
"For us, it's making sure that the right patients are on this program," he said. "If we believe this patient is inappropriately managed with safer supply, we will transition them and take them off the program completely, entirely."
'High standards' promised
Troster said she needs to hear more about how New Dawn will run the clinic, and said the status quo is unacceptable.
"If they intend to stay and work under new management, I need to know what they're willing to do to ensure that the drug dealing, the crime, the public drug use, and just the general level of chaos in the neighbourhood is actually dealt with," she said. "Because we received no help from Northwood in that regard."
Boucher isn't optimistic that new management will solve the problems she linked to the clinic.
"I'm not getting a sense that it will be much different," she said. "I can be hopeful, but why did they not contact us to let us know they were coming in?"
D'Souza said the clinic will offer a high standard of comprehensive care with addiction specialists, cardiologists, internal medicine specialists, psychotherapists and psychiatrists.
He said all of New Dawn's sites have the capacity for in-person and remote care, though he predicted that a higher-needs area like Ottawa would probably merit more in-person visits from physicians.
"For this area, we will have our doctors coming in person. They might not be there every day, but they're going to be there," he said.
"We have to look at the patient needs and the population. Our plan is always to be there in person, even if it's once a week, once every two weeks. We will have to decide based on the needs and our physicians."
D'Souza said New Dawn takes drug diversion very seriously and will take measure to combat it.
"Our program, I would say it's probably one of the strictest programs in the province," he said. "We have extremely good protocols to make sure we minimize any risk of diversion."
He offered to meet with Troster and promised to balance the safety of the community with the needs of his patients.
"We care about the patients and we care about the community," D'Souza said. "We have very high standards for our program, especially for our safer supply program."