Latest news with #NorthwoodRecovery
CBC
20 hours ago
- Health
- CBC
New operator takes over controversial Chinatown addiction clinic
Social Sharing 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."
CTV News
5 days ago
- Health
- CTV News
Safer supply clinic set to close in Ottawa's Chinatown neighbourhood
An Ottawa councillor says the closure of a controversial safer supply clinic in Chinatown will 'be a relief' to residents in the neighbourhood. Northwood Recovery billed itself as a safer supply site that provides legal drugs, like methadone, to help with addiction. The Northwood Recovery clinic initially opened in Hintonburg, before moving to its location on Somerset Street West in March. In her weekly newsletter to constituents, Somerset Coun. Ariel Troster said Northwood Recovery has indicated the clinic plans to close on June 9. 'The management of the clinic confirmed this with my office in writing. I know this will be a relief to many of you who live in Chinatown and West Centretown,' Troster wrote. 'This comes after tremendous community advocacy, from both residents and experts in the sector.' Troster says her office will continue to advocate for sustainable solutions to the overdose crisis, including harm reduction, treatment and supportive housing. 'The forced closure of the supervised consumption site at Somerset West Community Health Centre and the opening of the Northwood Clinic created a perfect storm, resulting in a significant and alarming uptick in public drug use and dealing,' Troster said. 'While I am deeply supportive of harm reduction services, it quickly became clear that the Northwood Clinic was not operating in a way that was accountable to the community or service users.' Northwood Recovery's website says the clinic offers a methadone program for people struggling with addition to opioids. 'It's an effective and legal substitute for heroin or other narcotics,' Northwood Recovery says. 'Methadone has been used in treatment programs since the 1960s. It helps to stabilize the lives of people who are dependent on opiates and reduce the harm related to drug use.' According to the website, there are Northwood Recovery and Recovery North locations in Sudbury, Timmins, Sault Ste. Marie, Hamilton, North York, Little Current, and Haileybury.
CBC
5 days ago
- Health
- CBC
Controversial safer supply clinic closing its doors next week
A divisive Ottawa safer supply clinic that prescribed opioids to fentanyl users but drew criticism while operating in two locations in less than a year will close its doors next week. Northwood Recovery prescribed Dilaudid and other medication to people struggling with drug addiction. It opened first in Hintonburg last September before moving to a new location in Chinatown in March. While patients who spoke to CBC generally supported the clinic, the company was criticized by others for its reliance on virtual care, for not offering a supervised injection site or wraparound services such as supportive housing, and for what neighbours said was an upsurge in open drug use. On May 30, Dr. Suman Koka, the doctor running Northwood Recovery and a network of sister clinics across Ontario, emailed Somerset Coun. Ariel Troster to confirm Northwood is closing its clinical practice in Ottawa on June 9. Troster shared the email with CBC. "We have informed the pharmacies," Koka wrote in the email. "We are taking direction from the patients as to which physician they wish their care to be transferred." Koka did not respond by deadline to a request for comment. Troster told CBC that while she supports harm reduction and more resources are definitely needed, she had concerns about how Northwood Recovery was operating out of its clinic on Somerset Street W., including its lack of supportive housing. The concern with Northwood Recovery was that people were getting prescriptions for Dilaudid when they were addicted to fentanyl because that's the strongest drug that doctors can prescribe according to the formulary in Ontario, Troster said. "Because it takes six or eight doses a day in order to stave off addiction to fentanyl, it means it was inevitable that people had to carry large quantities of drugs with them, which led to diversion or people reselling the drugs and a lot of the chaos that goes along with that," Troster continued. "People were being robbed of their drugs and it was a really unsustainable solution." Northwood Recovery's departure will likely bring relief to the community, "but it's definitely not a solution," Troster added.
CBC
28-04-2025
- Health
- CBC
Doctor operating safer supply clinics billed OHIP $2.5M last year
A doctor running a network of addiction clinics across Ontario, including an Ottawa location that offers safer opioid supply, is billing public insurance about $2.5 million per year. Dr. Suman Koka is the sole officer and director of Northwood Recovery, which has locations in North York, Hamilton and Manitoulin Island. It operates under the name Recovery North in Sudbury, Timmins and Sault Ste. Marie. Northwood Recovery opened its first Ottawa location in Hintonburg last year, but quietly moved it to Chinatown this March. Neighbours in both Hintonburg and Chinatown have criticized Koka for prescribing opioid medications to fentanyl users. They say his patients are trading the prescription drugs on the street to get harder substances, attracting dealers and crime to the area. City councillors representing both neighbourhoods have urged Northwood Recovery to change its operations or shut down. In an interview last month, Koka confirmed that the Ottawa clinic offers safer supply, a harm reduction approach intended to help users replace street drugs like fentanyl with safer prescription narcotics. Among other treatments, Koka prescribes hydromorphone, which is also known by the trade name Dilaudid. He confirmed that he primarily meets with patients at the Ottawa clinic remotely through telemedicine. CBC submitted a freedom of information request to the Ontario Ministry of Health seeking records of Koka's total billing to the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP). It reveals that he billed just over $2.3 million in 2023 and nearly $2.5 million in 2024. Those totals do not represent Koka's profit or take-home pay, since at least some of the money would be used to cover overhead costs at his clinics, which could include rent, supplies and administrative staff. But the totals are far in excess of typical billing. The average gross clinical payment for Ontario physicians was $388,557 in 2022-23, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information. Payments for the top quintile — the top 20 per cent of physicians by billing — were $568,432 on average. CBC also submitted a request for Koka's billing for telemedicine specifically. He billed $524,302 for virtual care services in 2024, including video and telephone consultations. The figures were current as of January 22 of this year. The documents include a note that physicians still have a three-month period to submit additional claims for processing. Koka had previously appeared on a Toronto Star database of highly paid doctors published in 2019. According to the Sudbury Star, which cited the Toronto Star's reporting, Koka billed $1.5 million in 2018-19, putting him in the top one per cent of doctors ranked by OHIP billing. Koka did not respond to a request this week with detailed questions about his 2023 and 2024 billing. He did not explain how he is able to personally see enough patients to bill millions of dollars per year, or whether he is delegating some of the care. But in a March interview, CBC asked him whether he was still one of Ontario's highest paid doctors. "I'm not sure about that, but I'll tell you I'm probably one of the hardest working doctors in Ontario," he said at the time. Previously cautioned for telemedicine practices Doug Angus, a professor emeritus at the University of Ottawa's Telford School of Management, said Koka would have to see a very high volume of patients to generate that kind of money. Angus, who specializes in health economics, said Koka's reliance on virtual care could allow him to cycle through patients quickly. "That's changed the game completely," he said. "There's a lot of general practitioners who would love to have that kind of situation, but there's no way they can generate that kind of gross income with face-to-face visits." He said that the ministry has tried to rein in high billers, but it's difficult to monitor. He said they haven't yet addressed the question of how many patients a doctor can effectively see. Koka's membership page on the College of Physicians and Surgeons website shows he has 15 practice locations, as well as hospital privileges at the Health Sciences North regional hospital in Sudbury. His medical professional corporation has 13 different addresses. The college cautioned him in 2019, after a patient complained that Koka didn't meet with him at all. Instead, a physician assistant at his office prescribed methadone after a virtual appointment. The college found no sign that the physician assistant had proper training — and noted that delegating care is only appropriate in the context of an existing doctor-patient relationship, which did not exist in that case. Somerset Coun. Ariel Troster met with Koka last month, along with area MPP Catherine McKenney. In a post to her website, Troster said she insisted on wraparound supports for patients and better security protocols during the meeting. She said the clinic has hired a security guard and a nurse and committed to removing people from the program if they divert their medications. In his March interview with CBC, Koka said Northwood Recovery takes drug diversion very seriously. He said patients found to be trading or selling their medications are discharged from the program. According to Koka, even suspicion can lead the clinic to put patients under a stricter regime where they must take doses on site. He said telemedicine has increased the number of people he is able to see, allowing more people to access addiction treatment. "Whether it's through video conference or whether through in person, the interaction is the same," he said.
CBC
14-03-2025
- Health
- CBC
Safer supply clinic's move to Chinatown worries community
Social Sharing A controversial 'safer supply' clinic that prescribes opioids to fentanyl users through virtual consultations has moved from Hintonburg to Chinatown, and the local city councillor says it isn't welcome unless it makes changes. Neighbouring residents and businesses say the arrival of Northwood Recovery on Somerset Street W. has brought an upsurge in open drug use to their doorsteps. They fear drug diversion, street dealing and violence will follow. James Taylor, who owns the Hangout board game and bubble tea café directly across from the new clinic, said it was once relatively rare to see someone shooting up near his business, but it's now become a daily or even hourly occurrence. He said he routinely sees people heating up their drugs in front of his doors or loading up their needles in his back alley. He called it "a constant battle." "I've seen, personally, groups of individuals over here pulling out pipes and smoking pipes right on the sidewalk when groups of children are trying to walk," he said. Nick LePine, a member of the local Dalhousie Community Association, said he's heard the warnings coming from Hintonburg residents who've been through this before. "There were stabbings and robberies that were happening, and it seems inevitable that that stuff's going to come here as well," he said. What is safer supply? Safer supply is a harm reduction approach that aims to reduce the risk of overdose by helping users replace street drugs like fentanyl with prescription opioids, which are generally less dangerous because their potency is known. Dr. Suman Koka is the prescribing physician at Northwood Recovery, and he confirmed that the clinic does prescribe hydromorphone, also known by the trade name Dilaudid. The medication is dispensed on site, not in a pharmacy. Koka said hydromorphone is just one form of treatment the clinic provides, in addition to medications like methadone and suboxone. "We're here to treat opiate use disorder. We've been doing this for 10 years, my practice and our physicians' practice," he said in a phone interview with CBC. "We have university affiliations. We work in inpatient addiction medicine. We work in correctional facilities. We're pretty comfortable with our medicine that we deliver to patients." Koka said his clinic aims to reduce fentanyl use and the illegal drug supply. In his view, that will help resolve the very issues that are troubling the community. But that's not what Kitchissippi Coun. Jeff Leiper noticed during the clinic's time in Hintonburg. After it opened last September, he said an "open-air drug market" took shape as patients sold or traded their pills onto the black market to get stronger drugs like fentanyl, a practice known as diversion. Leiper said it attracted dealers and crime to the area. Now, Somerset Coun. Ariel Troster is afraid the same thing will happen in Chinatown. She said she has "serious concerns" about the way Northwood operates. "People are walking away and they're carrying large quantities of these medications, which leaves them vulnerable to being robbed and vulnerable to diversion, and so there are problems both with this private operator and with the way the safe supply program is structured," she said. Koka said Northwood takes diversion very seriously and has protocols in place to prevent it. He said the clinic does regular urine screens and has hired a security company. A guard could be seen doing rounds this week. "If we find somebody that is diverting and we have clear evidence that they're diverting, then we will discharge them from our program," Koka said. Even the suspicion that patients are diverting can prompt the clinic to require them to take their doses on site, according to Koka. City councillor calls telemedicine for narcotics 'unacceptable' Patients who spoke to CBC generally supported the clinic, saying it has helped them stay off street drugs. They said it does enforce rules and some people get kicked off the program for diverting drugs. Few wanted to provide their real name, citing the stigma of using hard drugs. One, Joseph Ladouceur, spoke to CBC shortly before the clinic moved from Hintonburg. "It's helped me quite a bit," he said. "It's cut my drug use down to a bare minimum. The program they run here, it's by far one of the best things I've had." He confirmed that Dr. Koka sees patients remotely, but does show up "from time to time." Northwood Recovery has several clinics across the province, and Koka is not based in Ottawa. He said he sometimes comes for on-site visits, but acknowledged that the majority of consultations at the Ottawa clinic occur remotely. Troster said that's not acceptable. She called it "an abuse of the system." "I support safe supply in principle. It is extremely important. It helps people with serious addiction stabilize their lives, but it needs to be done in a way with proper case management, proper support, not with an absentee doctor who's just prescribing narcotics from an iPad," she said. In her view, it's unfortunate that a for-profit clinic has stepped in to fill the gap left by the closure of the supervised consumption site at the Somerset West Community Health Centre. "They were forced to stop by the Ford government and literally within a few days this new operator is setting up shop in Chinatown," she said. "It's not a coincidence." Doctor and councillor plan to meet next week In Troster's view, part of the problem is the use of Dilaudid, instead of a stronger, longer-lasting opioid that fentanyl users actually want to take. "They're prescribing Dilaudid for a fentanyl problem, which means that in order to stave off addiction, people need to take the drugs six or eight times a day, which means consuming on site is impossible," she said. "You'd have to be sitting in the clinic all day." Troster said she has a meeting arranged with Koka next week. Along with incoming MPP Catherine McKenney, she plans to push the clinic to change its protocols to follow the guidance of the community health centre and Ottawa Inner City Health. She said the main issue, for her, is providing in-person supports instead of virtual care. "If they're not able to follow the very same protocols that every other safe supply provider in the city provides, then we don't want them in the community," she said. "We don't want them taking advantage of vulnerable people, and we don't want them causing potential security problems in the neighborhood." If Northwood won't agree to make changes, Troster said she and McKenney will write to the provincial minister of health and ask her to shut the clinic down. But Koka defended the use of remote medicine, saying it allows more patients to access treatment they need. He added that Northwood has brought on an on-site nurse since moving to Chinatown, and their clerical staff is a trained phlebotomist. "Remote addiction medicine or remote medicine in general has increased the number of people that you can treat as a whole," he said. "Whether it's through video conference or through in person, the interaction is the same." He would not provide the size of his caseload. "I don't know if I need to comment on that," he said.
