2 days ago
Province set to pull funding for Red Deer harm reduction non-profit
A non-profit harm reduction agency in Red Deer says its future may be in jeopardy after the province decided to pull its grant funding.
Turning Point Society told CBC that the grant funding accounted for the majority of its yearly budget.
The society previously operated an overdose prevention site in Red Deer, until Alberta Health Services took over the site in 2023. The site closed earlier this year.
Red Deer Coun. Cindy Jefferies has concerns about what the funding cut will mean for the city's most vulnerable people.
"I think there's a misperception that if we stop funding services like Turning Point, that untreated and uncared for, vulnerable people will simply magically disappear," she said in an interview.
"We know for sure that that's not true if we take those services away. People need some place to go. Where will they go is my next question."
Turning Point provides more than just harm-reduction services.
Coun. Jefferies highlighted the vital role of Turning Point's outreach initiatives, such as the women's program, which offers education on pregnancy and parenting, alongside case management support for vulnerable women facing poverty and homelessness,.
The women's program is one of the four programs that will be axed as part of the funding cuts, Turning Point Society said in a Facebook post.
"Particularly because it's winter time coming up, just because the service goes away doesn't mean the need doesn't continue to exist," said Jefferies.
"Will it spill over into our streets, into our downtown core, into our park system throughout the community? Perhaps, and most likely, it will."
The Ministry of Primary and Preventative Health Services told CBC in a statement, that it would transfer resources to other providers as part of its health system refocusing. It said the government would explore alternative delivery models to provide care.
"A comprehensive transition plan will be established within the upcoming weeks to minimize service disruptions and ensure a smooth transfer to alternate providers, maintaining continuity of care," reads the statement sent Thursday.
The province that it would pull funding for Turning Pont on Nov. 1
Lorian Hardcastle, a professor at the University of Calgary who specializes in health law and policy around health care, said she's concerned that the province is getting too involved in addictions treatment.
"The evidence supports having a variety of different options available, embracing harm reduction, safe consumption, meeting people where they are," she said.
"So you have all of these other options that exist, but the government is really single-handedly and quite narrowly pursuing recovery-based options at the expense of some of these other evidence-based alternatives."
She said by cancelling funding for these services, more people will fall through the cracks, compounding an already overburdened health-care system in the province.
She also noted that Red Deer serves other rural communities in central Alberta.
"I think that they need to work with this organization to figure out exactly the services and programs that it's currently providing, how heavily those services and programs are used, who else is currently providing them and allocate funding accordingly," she said.
